Little Children (2006) User Reviews (353)

The Future Can Be a Different Story

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 8 January 2008]

In the suburbs, the boredom Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet) lives a dull marriage without love with her selfish husband Richard Pierce (Gregg Edelman), who is successful in his career but with awful sexual habits. She spends the mornings with her daughter Lucy (Sadie Goldstein) in the playground observing the behavior of the suburban mothers with their children. When Sarah sees the frisson caused by the handsome "househusband" Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson) in the other women, she decides to talk to him. Brad tells her that he has failed twice in the Bar exams for lawyer and he is financially supported by his wife Kathy (Jennifer Connelly), who is a documentary filmmaker. He omits that Kathy is a woman that gives all her attention to their son Aaron (Ty Simpkins), refusing to have sex with him. Sarah feels trapped in her unhappy life and has an affair with Brad, who is the opposite of Richard, in the afternoons. Meanwhile, the pervert Ronnie J. McGorvey (Jackie Earle Haley), who was in prison for indecent exposure, returns to his mother's house and feels the prejudice of his community against his presence, especially from the retired policeman Larry Hedges (Noah Emmerich) that is trying to force Ronnie to move away from their neighborhood.

"Little Children" is an extremely well-acted movie that uses a modern adaptation of Madame Bovary to the present days in the American suburbs. The boredom condition of Emma Bovary and Sarah Pierce are very similar, both fell trapped in an unhappy marriage, and have love affairs to escape from their boredom. This movie really deserved the nomination to the Oscar in the categories of Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, with Jackie Earle Haley having a top-notch performance in the role of a deranged sick man; Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role to the stunning Kate Winslet, one my favorite and best actress ever – my only remark is that, at least for my eyes and taste, she is a charming and beautiful woman, and apparently Sarah Pierce is a plain woman; and Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay, to Todd Field and Tom Perrotta that were able to perfectly develop a complex story with entwined lives of many characters in an adequate pace and eroticism. In the end, "Little Children" is one of those unforgettable and highly recommended movies. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Pecados Íntimos" ("Intimate Sins")

Evokes genuine interest

[Flagrant-Baronessa · 8/10 · 17 November 2006]

Relationship drama is on the menu and Todd Field is the waiter, with expert skill and neat presentation. 'Little Children' zooms in on suburbia, navigating the world of desperate housewives and husbands. The dish proves a pleasant diversion, with crisp performances and a tasty centre.

So tasty, in fact, that Little Children is one of the most interesting films of recent years. It is far from the greatest, and is not devoid of faults, but a genuine evocation of interest should be attributed to Field's story. Every character unflinchingly demands our attention. We want to know more about precisely everyone in the community. In the front row for fascination sits Ronnie, the resident child molestor, who pends between likable and freak. He is the overriding nominator for 'Little Children' – and his presence greatly upsets the parents.

Yet most salience is given to Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson as Sarah and Pierce – two lonely, bored and desperate housespouses who, in the midst of having nothing to do, innocently begin an extramarital affair with each other. Through calm narration, the film introduces Sarah as an anthropologist and remarks how she is different from the contingent of housemoms. However it becomes apparent that the director is the anthropologist and not Sarah. Indeed Field studies human relationships accordingly, interweaving loneliness, desperation, jealousy, lust and betrayal. Sarah, in fact, loses her 'objective' stance and melts in with the rest as she indulges in her passion with Brad.

It needs to be said that 'Little Children' often tips over into comedy and it is this refreshing edge that bumps it up to 8/10 on my scale. It treats serious subjects, such as pedophilia, infidelity and loneliness – but it does so with the spark in the eye. A consistent cloud of laughter seemed to hover in the air of my theatre at the Stockholm Film Festival and Kate Winslet was undoubtedly the catalyst. She gives a fine performance with excellent emotional transparency, layered skill and above all with an inherent funny bone that translates to a goofy woman. The humour is surprisingly in-tune even with the other characters with all their quirks and afflictions, such as child-molestation and online pornography.

Toward the end, 'Little Children' patiently crafts a sense of impending doom that deserves much credit. Nevertheless, the ending isn't the best imaginable. The film could benefit from being slightly shorter. Lastly the use of cute kids as tearjerkers is a disappointing cheap-shot used a little too often, and seems mostly a tiresome American phenomenon. Yet as a whole entity Little Children is a very interesting film that makes the best possible use of characters, relationships and suburban drama. Throw in a few exceptionally neat steadicam shots – Scorsese-style – and the experience is complete.

8 out of 10

An Enaging Film with Focus

[he_who_leads · 8/10 · 20 June 2007]

'Little Children' is one of those movies set in suburbia that explores men and women dealing with strained marriages, the politics of parenting, inertia, loneliness, fidelity/infidelity and dangers lurking beneath the surface. When not done well, films like this can appear to be overblown soap operas. When done right, like this one is, it is something to sink your teeth into and enjoy.

Sarah (Winslet) and Brad (Patrick Wilson) are both one-child, stay-at-home parents with a lack of focus or drive in their lives and a lack of connection with their spouses. Sarah is more frustrated - unwilling to just have a healthy fantasy life like the the other park mothers, while Brad drifts around and broods. They use their children as an excuse to spends more and more time with each other. Both actors give very bold performances here, their characters' emotions radiate off their bodies even when they're not saying much. Winslet is particularly good, managing to give Sarah an earthy sensuality. Her character feels so trapped that her lust for a purposeful and happy life becomes a rebellion. Winslet makes Sarah so in touch with her emotional needs and gives her such a charged urgency that I found her alluring, something I haven't felt towards her in her past performances, through she's always been an attractive and extremely good actress.

In the other story, a recently-released child sex offender (he exposed himself to some kids) named Ronnie (Jackie Earle Haley) tries to exist in a community that is being taught to fear him. Haley really shines in his role as a man acutely aware that his dark urges are wrong but is still in their grip. Haley is far more deserving of the supporting actor Oscar than Alan Arkin was, for his by-the-numbers 'Little Miss Sunshine' performance, but I guess they wanted to give him some sort of lifetime achievement recognition.

The movie slowly, piece by piece, becomes more gripping as everyones' lives become more desperate and tangled. This is sort of like 'Desperate Housewives' except more mature and less quippy. The script and direction manage to maintain focus on what is important. A criticism I have heard of this movie is that Brad and Sarah's spouses (Jennifer Connelly and Greg Edelman) are not developed enough and only serve to justify the two leads. Even though this may be true (Sarah's husband is pretty much a cameo) I have mixed feelings on this. The filmmakers' clear intention was only to feature the spouses in a way that gives you an idea of the relationship they have with the main characters, and to further flesh out the main characters. In other words, less is more. While this may or may not have been fine, it is only the ending of the film where it becomes a relevant problem. The film ends for Sarah and Brad in a way that calls into question the exact state of their current marriages. Since the spouses are underwritten, the viewer is left with a bit of an empty feeling. We've come to know the characters very well, but the information isn't quite aligned with the questions the ending raises. Also the film shows its literary roots through its heavy reliance on a narrator at the start, which (don't worry) becomes rarer as the film progresses. Much of what the narrator says is unnecessary as the actors are often already doing such a great job acting out the narrated text.

However, all this aside, 'Little Children' is clearly engaging, entertaining, carefully made and doesn't struggle to find things to say. I highly recommend it, if, like me, you're of those people who are constantly looking for something meaty in terms of acting, story and dramatic conflict.

Thoreau had it right.

[A_Roode · 9/10 · 8 November 2006]

I was walking home the other evening having just watched this at the theatre. Two guys were ahead of me on the street and had just seen it as well. Not intending to listen in on their conversation ... I did anyway, *LOL*. One asked his friend what he thought about the movie and the second took a moment to think about it. His answer? "Twisted man, too twisted!" Thoreau wrote in Walden that "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." In 'Little Children,' we see that quiet desperation played out to full effect by desperate housewives, ex-cons and damaged loners. A deep study of loneliness, 'Little Children' is morally ambiguous and doesn't judge. It uses humour, it uses dread, and it is a film that is at times quirky, intelligent and ultimately fascinating.

I liked a lot of things about this movie and in the week since I saw it, I've grown to like it more. Thematically it should have been a terrible downer: a collection of people who've all settled into what seems like the beginning of the end. They've married, started having kids and every single one of them wakes up in the morning with dread. "Is this all that is left?" They have become, or more importantly, believe that they have become completely purposeless in the next of a continuing doldrum of empty days. Eternity awaits and eternity is purposeless existential hell.

What is remarkable about a film whose subject should be so bleak, is the warmth and humour within it. Characters in 'Little Children' reject the lack of purpose, the unhappiness and try to re-inject a passion for life that they once had. At its most extreme, the quest for passion and purpose is lead by Noah Emmerich -- certainly most of the humour comes from his character. Winslet, Wilson and Emmerich are all flawed (who isn't?) but sympathetic. And then there is Jackie Earle Haley.

How difficult must it have been to play a convicted sex offender who is both repellent and *gasp* sympathetic? If you're Jackie Earle Haley and you are stealing a film away from bigger stars and you've got a great part, then apparently it isn't very hard at all. Creepy, potentially dangerous but also fairly benign and pitiable, Haley gives a much over-looked performance in what is quickly becoming a much over-looked film. He has given what I think is one of the best performances this year, and what is certainly the best performance of his entire career.

'Little Children' is "twisted man, too twisted" but it is also very good and very compelling. Well worth the risk and extremely well paced. It was only after the film had ended that I noticed how long the film was. Completely engrossing, I recommend it highly.

Suburban Paradise Lost

[dfranzen70 · 9/10 · 30 July 2007]

"You couldn't change the past," the narrator of Little Children tells us at the movie's close, "but the future could be a different story." The lives of the men and women who live in the very paragon of bland suburbia appear to be crunchy (and even somewhat unforgiving) on the outside, but inside they break, well, just like a little girl. A veritable sea of emotions, from love, despair, neglect, and hate churns below their pristine, everything-in-its-place veneers.

The placidity of this particular neighborhood is jolted by two things: the arrival of a sex offender (Jackie Earle Haley) and the emergence of a relationship between married-but-not-to-each-other Sarah and Brad; both events, directly and obliquely, are remarked upon by the nattering nabobs of middle-class conservatism in the town, particularly the rather particular hausfraus and soccer moms.

Sarah Pierce (Winslet) is a distant mother and wife; when she and her daughter Lucy visit the neighborhood playground, she sits away from the other mothers. As an indirect result, Lucy doesn't play with the other boys and girls on the see-saws or merry-go-round - she just plays quietly. Meanwhile, as the empty-headed women babble to each other (but not Sarah), a newcomer enters their midst - a stay-at-home father, Brad, whom they mockingly call (behind his back, of course) "The Prom King." Sarah's marriage seems empty and devoid of purpose. Brad, for his part, is married to a breadwinner - his wife Karen (Jennifer Connelly) is a documentary filmmaker who's completely absorbed with her work. Like Sarah, Brad is a little emotionally distant from his wife and their son, Aaron, so it's no wonder he and Sarah become constant companions throughout the long, hot suburban summer, spending their days either at the park or at the public pool.

The other main story thread involves the community's reaction to the presence of Ronnie McGorvey, convicted as a sex offender for flashing a young boy. Soon, there are fliers on telephone poles, and an angry outrage group is formed, led by ex-policeman Larry (Noah Emmerich), who seems to be more upset with Ronnie's existence than anyone else in the town.

At its core, the movie is about repression and "settling" - staying with someone just because they provide you comfort but no love is no reason at all, the film explains. Committing adultery just might be an okay act, even with children involved, as long as it means a better life for the principals. Brad and Sarah transform from nodding acquaintances to good friends who take care of their kids together (Aaron and Lucy even grow to become friends, although up to that point they'd both been loners.) When the opportunity arises for them to become more, though, they take it - an act that's not easy to conceal from the prying eyes of the neighbors, let alone their respective spouses and certainly not their children. How long, if at all, can they possibly hope to maintain the charade that they're just friends? Perhaps the thought that their own, current marriages are charades in their own right gives Sarah and Brad reason to believe they can perpetuate the sham against their spouses.

Meanwhile, Ronnie attempt to cope with living as a sex offender. He lives with his doting mom, who believes there is good in everyone; she realizes that what Ronnie did was wrong, but that it was an accident, and she tries in vain to protect him from the rest of the community, which is by and large out to lynch him. But the brilliant caveat here is that Ronnie is by no means a victim - not only did he do what he was accused of (although he shows remorse and a lot of self-hate), but he shows that he's capable of more of the same.

In fact, that's the genius of Todd Field's film - not only are people flawed, but they're believably flawed. In Little Children, people make decisions for selfish reasons, and there's no wondrous epiphany that somehow saves the soul and good standing of the poor decision maker - people live with what they've done, or they don't make the decision in the first place.

Winslet and Haley were nominated for their work here; the first-ever nomination for Haley, who was probably best known as Kelly Leak in the Bad News Bears films. He's eerie and creepy and utterly human as Ronnie McGorvey. You never really feel sympathy for the deviant, but you might feel a twinge of unease. For Winslet, this was the fifth nomination for the beauteous Briton, and it's astounding that she hasn't yet won. Then again, she's only 31 years old! Little Children is a stark, seamless, unsettling story that grabs a hold of your psyche and twists it almost to the breaking point, relying on strong performances by Winslet, Haley, Wilson, and Emmerich as well as a tortuous plot that provides quite a jaded look at the tranquility of suburban life.

very smart about Little Adults, with odd screw-ups

[cnewf · 7/10 · 29 December 2006]

This movie does a wonderful job of representing the undertow of confusion and stuckness that threatens to pull people under. It cuts among interlocking stories that each center on someone who is about to dive down beneath their established life, and for entirely normal, believable reasons. 45 minutes into the film, all the main characters have thrown themselves into the vortex, creating the uneasy fear one feels for people who are about to risk everything they've deliberately built up in order to end a sense of suffocation that is much less concrete than the secure surface of their lives, but somehow more real. This is strong suspense film about that crucial question of whether or not our own happy lives actually make us feel alive.

The movie covers an updated version of Cheever territory - the despair beneath the comforts of American suburbia. "Little Children" is better than "American Beauty" and "The Ice Storm," and is intelligent about the effects of thwarted desire in the way of Todd Haynes's "Safe." It has the eerie disorientation of "The Swimmerj" It's particularly shrewd about the original source of romantic yearning itself. The film's real "LIttle Children" are the parents from two different families who fall in love with each other. They are the stay-at-home Mom and the Mr. Mom who re-marry each other informally at the neighborhood pool where they spend every summer day taking care of their adorable kids. Together they are as bland as they are in their actual marriage. Their interest in each other doesn't unearth some suppressed power or depth in themselves, which is always the assumption behind the affair. It reflects their mutual wish to recapture the unrestricted experience they associate with childhood - no bar exams, no dissertations to finish, no spouses with budgets or habits of Internet wankfests at the work computer. You can see the affair coming with the first encounter between these two fair-haired parents who are the bored and aimless and also subordinate to their focused and competent spouses in each of their marriages. Unlike the breadwinners, these two are still looking for what they want to do in life. When they seem to find that thing in their daily poolside parenting and then later in their daily sex, they are put by the film into strict parallel with their preschool kids sharing their afternoon naps. It's a nice dream - play and sleep, play and sleep, all feeling unforced and unchangingly attractive, every day happily the same. As if.

The other true thing about the movie is that Sarah and Brad (Winsett and Wilson) resolve to run off together and then chicken out and chicken out accidentally-on-purpose, in ways that allow them to go "home" to their focused, successful spouses who are capable of taking care of them, and yet go home without acknowledging to themselves that this is what they really want. Sarah concocts a panic attack when her child wanders out of her sight for five minutes in the nighttime park where she had gone to meet Brad. Brad interrupts his trip to destiny to fulfill his wannabe skateboarder dreams, injuring his beautiful body and giving himself the perfect excuse never to try anything again. Lots and lots of us finally stand up for ourselves only to take this kind of dive right away, as soon as we decently can. One reason is that we stood up for the wrong thing, even though it took us forever to do so.

So can the problems be overlooked? Well let's inventory them. The movie polarizes straight and sensitive suburbia in a phony way. The other moms are stereotypes of sexual repression, living on the edge of hysteria. When Brad and Sarah first kiss in front of them (on a jokey dare from Sarah), the moms grab up their kids and flee just as the neighborhood moms do later at the pool when the registered sex offender is found swimming around with a mask and snorkel. The same false polarity infects the original marriages: the dominant spouses are so disconnected from their partners that you wonder how they could have been married for even a few weeks: why would a phony, money-grubbing "brander" ever have married a failed English lit PhD student, or vice versa, and why would a smart documentary maker ever marry the pretty but super-dull Brad, whose soul can be filled through the camaraderie of night-league football? In the film's clunkiest moment, Ronnie, the sex offender, has a date with an attractive, clinically-depressed thirtysomething (played well by Jane Adams), bonds with her in a sympathetic, fraternal way, and then as she's praising their conversation in the car starts to jerk off and threaten her like a possessed maniac. The moment destroys the analogy between criminalized and "normal" perversion that had helped to humanize Ronnie (his mother is the film's strongest single character, played brilliantly by Phyllis Somerville). His auto-mutilation at the end just reproduces the suburban sexual hysteria the film supposedly critiques. Equally implausible is that his tormentor, the other unloved man, ex-cop and night-league loser Larry, turns into his rescuer: this is the kind of instant redemption that the basic intelligence of this film would rule out. The problem is the film undermines the quasi-heroic struggles of their flawed main characters - Ronnie, Brad, and Sarah - so that their weak and pathetic ends make the earlier dramas seem unreal in retrospect. If they fold THIS easily, then what were we watching the previous two hours.

The men in this film - ouch. They are useless and dangerous by turns. The women are suffocated and unhappy. The American middle-class comes off badly - spoiled, unfocused, and without the strength to save itself or anybody else. We are, the movie says, the little children of world.

Amazing!

[[e-mail] · 10/10 · 21 October 2006]

Out of all the "Oscar Bait" films I've seen this year, this film beats them all. Little Children is an unbelievable masterpiece about what it means to grow up. This idea is brilliantly portrayed through characters - while categorized as "adults" - have yet to outgrow certain adolescent stages.

Brad is a man who never got the chance to experience the spotlight in his youth, and now he desperately craves attention, acknowledgment, or admiration in any form.

Sarah is a woman who never learned how to grow past her own selfishness. She is angry at her daughter for needing attention when all Sarah wants is some time to herself.

Larry is a man who still harbors bully-like tendencies, and desperately just wants to fit in and be one of the guys. This is seen through his treatment of Ronnie - the pedophile who was just released from prison and returned to the neighborhood.

Ronnie is the dangerous man. The man who cannot connect with people his own age and seeks sexual gratification with children or with people who - like him - cannot fit into the adult world.

This isn't an action moving - it's an interaction movie. The scenes between characters have you nailed to your seat and deeply invested. The characters interact within their small community, and their actions with each other build into a climatic explosion that forces them all to face truths about themselves, and - finally - accept their responsibilities as mothers, husbands, fathers, and humans. This accepting is what separates little children from adults, immature from mature.

The tale is moving, sad, hilarious, dark, breathtaking, thought-provoking and many other creative adjectives. It forces you to reevaluate your idea of yourself and your thoughts on others. It forces you to see people you would normally loath and dismiss in a differently light. This a movie you will come out of changed. If you only see one film a higher, I cannot recommend this one more.

stunningly quiet, tense, and interesting

[lauraglee · 7/10 · 16 November 2006]

I watched this tonight in order to avoid a downpour of rain in New York City. I love Kate Winslet and she was fantastic in this film. I saw "In the Bedroom" and "Little Children" had a similar style but was much more riveting. I was warned by a writer friend of mine, that the pedophilia might turn me off to the film, but the issues raised were brilliantly-woven into the plot line, and I never shy away from watching films that portray potential realities.

It was a good film. The actors were spot-on, and Jennifer Connelly was also really great. I recommend this film to anyone.

The movie ended on an ambiguous note- i'm not sure how I feel about the outcome of how the characters ended up. The love affair between the adulterers was charming and real, but in the end, it seemed like the end of the film took upon a moral note without convincingly demonstrating how the characters ended up in their decisions. It's almost like the story decided not to carry things through and reveal the possibilities of the plot line, because the film 'had to end.' Despite this, it was a good film, and raises a lot of questions.

Perversely Yours

[axlgarland · 10/10 · 17 February 2007]

Bedrooms still play an important part in Todd Field universe but this time there is an outing, intellectual and emotional, that overwhelms in the apparent patina of familiarity. "Little Children" sizzles with an uncomfortable sense of impending doom. Kate Winslet, through her later day Madame Bovary, gives us a character that is recognisable and never seen before at the same time. Powerfully honest to the point of self destruction and yet, her feelings seem so clear and pure, so innocent. Kate Winslet in a superlative performance, invites us to believe that a human being can inhabit that contradiction without seem absurd. Patrick Wilson's courage without brains or vice versa is an uncomfortable pleasure to watch. Jennifer Connelly has one of the most chilling domestic moments I've seen in a long time: a moment of realisation at a dinner table. Contradictions, perhaps, are at the centre of this wonderfully conceived universe, Weary of domestic bliss. compassion for a child molester. Jack Earle Haley's psycho is not played for sympathy - he is a horrible character. He and his mother, the great Phyllis Somerville - are a realistic version of a Hitchcockian coupling. Adult entertainment, yes entertainment too, of the first order.

Great setup, no payoff

[zetes · 7/10 · 8 January 2007]

An oddly toned film. I have been able to avoid the more intense discussions this has aroused, and I was barely at all aware that the film had comedic tones. As far as I can figure, the film posits suburban and married life in the realm of the Twilight Zone, via a deep-voiced, omniscient narrator. The narrator is something that most film audiences don't care for, but I don't think Field and novelist/screenwriter Tom Perrotta would have been able to capture the tone they did without it. So I personally thought that worked. I think the tone is really what makes the film memorable. The movie's steeped in awkwardness, but, at least for most of the film's run, it isn't awkward itself. The story begins well, and the characters are excellently realized and performed. Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson play the primary caregivers to their toddler children. They grow closer as they meet repeatedly at playgrounds and the public swimming pool, and soon begin an affair. The film's major subplot deals with a recently released sex offender (played by Jackie Earle Haley) who is being hassled by a former police officer (Noah Emmerich). Haley's loving, elderly mother (Phyllis Somerville) tries desperately to protect her son. The main plot and the subplot tangle together in the end, and there is an attempt to relate the subplot to the main plot (as per screen writing 101), but it feels mighty forced. In fact, pretty much everything fizzles by the film's very weak ending. The strong story that had been built up, alas, has no satisfying resolution. I still think it's mostly a very strong film, though, with great direction by Field.

A Highly Unusual and Exceptional Film

[evanston_dad · 10/10 · 23 October 2006]

Can there be such a thing as a feel-good movie about marital infidelity and suburban ennui? If so, then I believe this haunting, powerful and superb new movie from Todd Field may be it.

A feel-good movie was not in the least what I was expecting from this, based on the trailers and on Field's prior film, the astringent and depressing "In the Bedroom." And it's not like I left the theatre feeling the need to break into song. But unlike other films about the stultifying atmosphere of suburban America, and the prisons so many people seem to make out of their domestic worlds, "Little Children" ends with a distinct feeling of hope and optimism. In other domestic dramas, the characters are frequently unlikable, and they appear to drift through their worlds allowing things to happen to them without taking any responsibility for themselves. In "Little Children," Field does not present us with a handful of caustic stereotypes, but rather with a cast of actors who create warm but flawed human beings. These characters don't drift through life. They have things they care about, and they want and feel that they deserve some of the small happinesses that all human beings have a right to. But they also screw up, make bad decisions, act irrationally. What saves them, and the movie, is that in the end they all wake up, realize they're chasing dreams, and decide to make something of the lives they have rather than the lives they think they want.

I thought this was a hopeful message, and one that carries with it a tremendous impact in this post-9/11 culture, when the safety nets on which we've built our existences have been ripped out from under us and we're left trying to make sense of a scary world. This film, in its closing moments, states outright that there's no time like now to begin taking control of our own worlds and making of them what we want. The best weapon we can wield against an uncertain future are our children, who can learn from our mistakes and make something new rather than simply repeat an endless cycle.

As for the acting.....Kate Winslet shines as Sarah, the suburban mom who doesn't fit in and embarks upon a reckless affair to fill a void in her days. Her performance is one of those small triumphs of acting, in which Winslet builds a living, breathing human being from the ground up through a series of subtle and thoughtful choices. Patrick Wilson, such a limp noodle in the screen version of "The Phantom of the Opera," is pitch perfect as Brad, the stud who attracts Sarah's eye. And the other actors take full advantage of their smaller roles: Jennifer Connelly as Brad's loving but distracted wife; Jackie Earle Haley as the film's most tragic figure, Noah Emmerich as an ex-cop who takes homeland security into his own hands; and Phyllis Somerville, who has a couple of beautifully heart-breaking moments as the mom of an outcast.

The screenplay is thematically elaborate. There's hardly an element of one character's storyline that doesn't find a parallel in the storyline of another. The theme of parenting is of course central, but beyond simply focusing on the responsibilities parents owe their children, the film goes deeper and examines how parents' behavior affects their children and the extent to which parents can change the world for good or bad through what they hand down to the children who inherit it.

A bracing, fantastic film.

Grade: A+

...Not in Front of the Children !

[j_graves68 · 7/10 · 14 October 2006]

A release that I had looked forward to for almost a month after seeing the trailer in the theatre, it had finally hatched in October. Tom Perrotta's "satirical" 2004 novel had been released and I was able to finish reading it before the film's impending release. The film stars Kate Winslet (who, along with Guy Pearce, have both mastered the American accent in ennui), Academy Award-winning Jennifer Connelly (who unfortunately does not have enough screen time) and rising newcomer Patrick Wilson (destined to become the next Josh Lucas). The other comeback (and so many reviewers have mentioned him already) is the return of former teen heartthrob Jackie Earle Haley ("Breaking Away," "The Bad News Bears") as a parolee pedophile who is carefully insinuated in the film's climax. A redeeming endeavor on film involving such an un-redeeming character.

The film is about two married suburbanites who are stay-at-home parents that embark on an affair (Winslet and Wilson) while their spouses are bringing home the bacon. Winslet's husband is already a pathetic sap whose addicted to internet porn, so it's not hard to empathize with Kate's endeavors (although the right thing for her would to up and leave him- but then that would be an entirely different movie). Wilson who is married to Connelly is different- because despite of how slightly emasculating she is on her husband, the woman is still likable. At the film's climax, Kate tells Patrick that their sneaking around is weird and she wants closure (which of course a lot of people in her position would want as well). Although in the book, her character never asserted herself like that. I also found myself comparing the film to the novel (which at times seemed over-written). There were subtle changes that were made due to time, budget and cinematic reasons, but the best change was of the ending as opposed to the book's. The book's ending was so contrived and implausible, Field did a superb job with coming up with something less anti-climatic and more shocking. This is one of those rarities in where you can honestly say that the film was better than the book. Another sequence that was excised from the movie that was in the book was the fact that Kathy had not only figured out that Brad was having an affair with Sarah, but she acted as if they were competing athletes and that he received the gold medal and she just got the silver instead, and that it wasn't fair to her. That too, was implausible and I was relieved that that was gone. In the book, Sarah (Winslet) was more needy and Kathy (Connelly) was producing a documentary about WWII vets rather than Desert Storm.

My real complaint about this film (aside from the under-usage of Connelly) was the narrative voice-over that would present itself throughout the picture. Although it was well-written (taken verbatim from the novel at times), it was slightly distracting. It seemed to offer a perspective of the character's innermost feelings at times, but it also seemed as if the narrator was talking to the audience as if they were "children," and it seemed unnecessary. But that is probably the desired effect here: with the narration, the viewer almost feels as if they are watching a psychology film studying infidelity with that borderline-baritone, ominous-sounding voice sequestering the characters and their actions from the audience. The narration did provide some comic relief for the audience though, whereas Todd Field's first film "In the Bedroom" did not. Field probably learned from that and proved with a vengeance that he could make a better film.

I would not be surprised to see this film on the ballot around Oscar season: Kate Winslet truly deserves props for her performance (especially at the end where her character breaks down- you can sense the overall frustration that she has and her epiphany is spliced within her sobs). Jackie Earle Haley without any word said deserves a Best Supporting Actor nomination, but I know because of the lack of publicity and the limited number of theatres this film venued at, there is little hope for a little film with "little" in its title that will really score big.

Hamhanded Hollywood morality play

[missionguy · 2/10 · 17 May 2007]

In the spirit of "Grand Canyon" and "American Beauty," this is an overwrought epic about sex panic in America. While it's good to have conversations about sexuality, monogamy and the treatment of people convicted of sex crimes, the writing in this script is so wooden that the result is nearly unbearable. There's actually a voice-over narration with a cheesy male voice that begs the question "Is this a satire?" I kept waiting for the irony to break through, but it doesn't. It becomes clear that this is Hollywood congratulating itself for taking on large social issues, albeit only the concerns of suburban rich white people.

The voice over is over the top. Kate Winslet will be looking off into the mist and there will be a voice over saying something like "Sarah thought about her life with her husband. She wasn't happy." Things that are so basic and emotional, the sort of things that should be adapted into dialogue or acting. Voice overs should only be used if the writing voice is extraordinary (it isn't) or there is some sort of satirical bent (there isn't).

The film takes on the tenor of a B-grade horror movie taking itself way too seriously. The final scenes, where Ronnie, the man arrested for exposing himself to a minor, completely reverts to childlike, faux-retarded behavior and smashes his mother's menagerie of glass figurines. Tennessee Williams this is not. When he castrates himself at the end, I actually groaned out loud. Naturally, since it's Hollywood, everything is restored to the status quo at the end. Everyone has an epiphany and sees the light and goes back to their unhappy marriages. I was dumbfounded! I kept thinking about all those people on Oscar night — the voters and the people involved with this film and all the critics who gave this movie its reputation — actually cooperating with this idea that THIS is the best Hollywood can do in terms of social commentary. "In the Bedroom" was a very different movie, but mostly because there were better actors and a basis of solid writing by Andre Dubus. This script and the book it was based on are the lowest common denominator. Shame on Hollywood for peddling such crap.

This is an update on 1950s sexual hysteria. It's not smart and it's not art.

Jackie Earle Haley is outstanding!

[conlaw · 10/10 · 21 October 2006]

Director Todd Field satirizes western society and exposes our fundamental flaw as a society. We are a country of self-righteous hypocrites who band together to crush evil wherever it may be found but overlook our own weaknesses.

The story on one level is exceedingly banal: it shifts from scene to scene exposing the triviality of day to day life. Yet there is that haunting sound of an approaching train. Are we witnessing a train wreck? The brilliant use of a narrator lulls us into the belief that this is just a children's story and nothing bad will happen. Yet our eyes are glued to the screen as we await the crash.

Jackie Earle Haley as Ronnie exposes everything that is wrong with our modern world and everything that is right about character acting. He gives a stand out performance definitely worthy of Oscar consideration. The character represents an unknown evil in our community, one that must be sought out and destroyed. His character at times is sympathetic, even lovable and other other times hideous and menacing.

But who is more detestable? Is it Ronnie or is it those infinitely boring (but beautiful) adulterers, Sarah (Kate Winslet) or Brad (Patrick Wilson)? Is it up to us to judge? If we do, are we not being like the suburban community that is the metaphor for our society? In that way, Director Todd Fields includes us in the movie whether we know it or not. This is a wonderful (train) ride that will keep us talking for days. It is one of this year's great movies.

remarkable film

[indianfroggie · 10/10 · 28 October 2006]

Just remarkable, because it goes in split second from laughter to deep tragic shock without affecting the credibility of the story, back and forth.

Every actor has been brilliantly directed and it is a gallery of portrays, not just two actors leading the story. I found myself so affected by it because of the sheer unpredictable storyline going to predictable then going back to the unknown.

You will watch how people whirl themselves into their own actions and then try to find a way out of these consequences. Then they free themselves at times, to trap themselves next. Absolutely brilliant, with an array of emotions succeeding to one another.

Visually sumptuous. People stayed in the theater and talked about it.

Looking back, you feel afterward how much love and dedication from director, crew and actors went into it. Just a stunning, beautiful movie.

interesting try but overrated

[BaldyCotton · 6/10 · 12 November 2006]

Saw this film last night--while it was a mostly enjoyable couple of hours, I really feel that it's overrated. For starters, the whole way through I felt like I was watching the distilled cinematic version of a novel, and I had no idea about the source material going in. Jennifer Connelly is fantastic and should've been given more screen time in the final cut (not sure why--or did she?--agree to be second banana to Kate Winslet). I think the two leads are miscast . . . Patrick Wilson does not ring true as the self-doubting ex-jock (the whole skateboarding metaphor is a joke, particularly later on). His performance is okay, but I'm just not buying him in the role. Way too pretty, and I agree with what others have said: that it's highly unlikely two beautiful, privileged spouses would be at such different places in their lives so early in their marriage. Same goes for Winslet--too pretty and smart (the film suggests she's an ABD lit. academic) to be married to such a top-drawer weenie, plus I found her US accent this time out was a little too distracting/patrician for the suburban role.

There's no nuance in the secondary characters--I found Noah Emmerich's performance to be annoying/uninteresting . . . he was just kind of like a wet pair of diapers that won't go away, and if he's one of the "little children," that's not nearly enough to hold my interest. Similarly, the suburban moms are presented in a totally ridiculous way: let's see, we've got a Witches of Eastwick-lite blond mom, a red-haired mom, and a black-haired mom all sitting together on the park bench (you see, they have to sit together 'cause they're all essentially the same stock character). But Winslet is different, 'cause, like, she's on the other bench. Just too cartoony for me, and again later in the book club segment blond mom is presented as a one-note drone. Not to say those moms don't exist, but I really don't see the point here other than to hit the "stupid" viewer over the head. This is a pretty easy target for the filmmaker/screenwriter. Other than in Jackie Earle Haley's character, where's the complexity? The best movies have character actors who offer layered performances.

The dragnet cop–sounding narrator also didn't really work for me. A little too droll by half. And I must say that I'm growing very weary of the show-ending-intercut-montage-sequence-with-voice-over device that every drama on TV currently exploits to the hilt, and now apparently filmmakers feel the need to use. Please, directors, avoid the bravura montage sequence . . . I'm begging you! Magnolia really created a monster with that.

See the movie and decide for yourself. I'm not sorry I saw it—I was just expecting more. Love that Connelly, though. I think I'd probably watch her reciting the phone book.

Fine sexual drama with a small uncertainty of tone

[Chris Knipp · 9/10 · 23 September 2006]

Todd Field's Little Children's screenplay was written in collaboration with Tom Perrotta, on whose eponymous novel it's based. Perrotta wrote Election's, Bad Haircut's, and Joe College's funny, ironic screenplays before this. But though mildly satirical at times in its vision of middle-class white infidelity, this second film (at last) from the director of the powerful 2000 In the Bedroom, with its themes out of Cheever or Updike, also moves toward the solemn and the shocking.

One big reason for that is a second plot about a just-released sex offender and a troubled ex-cop who turns into a self-appointed protector of public morality campaigning to drive the ex-prisoner out of town.

Brad (Patrick Wilson) is a househusband caring for his little boy while feebly preparing for his previously failed bar exams. He has a gorgeous but emasculating wife, Kathy (Jennifer Connelly) who's a successful PBS-style documentary filmmaker. Sarah (Kate Winslet), with an MA in English, in charge of a recalcitrant little girl with whom she has little patience at times, has a well-off distant husband (Gregg Edelman) who's a pretentious adman who gets off on Web porn. Sarah and Brad meet in a park where moms take their kids, in East Wyndham, Massachusetts. They wind up kissing when they first meet, mainly to shock the other moms.

Brad and Sarah spend a lot of the summer minding their kids together at the municipal pool. This turns into a torrid affair with frequent sex at Sarah's husband's large house. They're attractive, and attracted, and their general dissatisfaction with their spouses and with where they are now heightens their need to throw themselves at each other with the utmost abandon.

Meanwhile Ronnie (former child actor Jackie Earle Haley, vividly remembered from Bad News Bears and Breaking Away and strong in a new way here) has come into town: he's the sex offender, a painfully self-aware one, and he lives with the one person who loves him, his aging mother Ruth (a convincing Phyllis Somerville), while the ex-cop, Larry (Noah Emmerich) wages his war as a one-man "committee." Larry and Brad have met and Larry persuades Brad, who already wastes time watching boys skateboarding when he's supposed to be boning up for the bar exam, to join a night touch football league team made up of cops – and thus the infidelity and the sex offender elements are linked. But they would be anyway, because this is a small community. And one particularly hot day Ronnie comes to the municipal swimming pool and causes an outcry when he's spotted ogling young girls under water.

The other moms from the park, who were afraid of Brad and called him "the Prom King," are gently satirized by a voice-over narration spoken by Will Lyman, of Frontline on PBS, which sounds like a high school educational film. Perrotta is, after all, a comic writer. But more of that later.

The movie has a bright, intense, clear visual style, sometimes making use of extreme close-ups. Since the acting and directing are fine, this gives things a feeling of authority. It's also effective in underlining both the satirical and the sensual aspects of the story, and heightens the emotional effect when the narrative lines move toward crisis.

Brad's development (the novel-based voice-over tells us) may have been arrested by his mother's dying when he was in his early teens, and this explains why he watches the skateboarding boys with such longing: they're having the playtime that was stolen from him.

Another theme is that of Cheryl (Marsha Dietlein), Sarah's friend and neighbor who baby-sits with her daughter when she's having sex with Brad, speed-walks with her, and gets her into a book-discussion group leading to a pointed scene in which Madame Bovary is discussed and Sarah defends the adulterous heroine as someone who revolted in search of freedom. The older women nod approvingly, while one of the park moms doesn't get it at all.

Partly because it's hard to juggle all these elements from a 350-page novel, the ironic narrative voice disappears throughout the film's midsection.

At the end matters all come to a head, with Brad and Sarah, with Ronnie, and with his erstwhile nemesis, Larry, and a lot of tension is created through Hitchcockian cross-cutting between these climaxing threads.

Field has avoided the extreme finale of his first film -- this one shares such heavy concerns as families, infidelity, crime, and confronting death, but by contrast, this ending, though breathless and troubling, is ultimately sweet and marked by reconciliation and acceptance. One may wonder if underlying issues have really been resolved. The film feels somewhat overlong, but the nuanced characterizations and fine acting and the attractiveness of the central couple entertain and interest us mightily.

Perhaps the one weakness overall is a slight uncertainty of tone, which explains why some viewers are troubled by the voice-over (and also by its long disappearance midway). If situations are seen primarily as highly serious or even horrifying, it's hard to see how the satirical feel fits in, and at the end we seem to have lost touch with where we started out. Ultimately as with so many American stories on film, the writers seem to have tried to tackle too much material. Nothing wrong with that, but they haven't quite got the world-view to encompass it all. Technically though Field has achieved more polish and shown more confidence, even compared to his already admirable and powerful first film of five years ago. The cast is wonderful, well chosen and well used. Field is an experienced actor: he knows the craft. This has got to be a film to think about at year's end when best lists are made up.

A Movie About Little Grown-Ups That Would Have Worked Better As Two Movies

[Chrysanthepop · 24 February 2008]

My friends advised me against watching 'Little Children' as they found it very boring. Having liked Todd Field's previous film 'In The Bedroom' and knowing that it had Kate Winslet and Jennifer Connelly (whose works I very much admire alongside their beauty), I decided to watch it anyway. The poster was a put-off as the tagline stated: Twin Peaks meets Desperate Housewives. I hate such taglines where the movie concerned is being compared to other films, TV series or whatever. On top of that, I am no fan of 'Desperate Housewives'. However I found the trailer appealing as it gave the impression that it was a dark film about a married couple (Connelly and Wilson) and the other woman (Winslet), it appealed to me. Only later I will find out that I've been deceived.

Sadly, 'Little Children' is not as great as I had expected. The idea of juggling too stories did not seem fitting and on top of that the film drags a lot. On one side there's a story about a married couple, in which the husband has an affair with a married woman. On the other side there's a story about a 'child molester' who has just moved in with his mother to an unwelcoming neighborhood and to make things worse, he is constantly harassed by an ex-copper. Both stories are interesting but would have faired better in two films rather than being squeezed as one. In addition to that, the ending of the first story does not convince. It seemed a little too abrupt, as if the director was in a hurry to wrap it up. It looks as though the writers tried to tackle too many ideas. The voice-over seems pointless. Some editing would have stopped the film from dragging.

On the brighter side, I found the visuals very impressive. The frames are quite well done and the cinematography is superb. The sound adds to the feeling of loneliness and the soundtrack and background score is beautiful. Overall, the film does look polished. It does achieve the satirical feel but somehow loses it.

And, of course, what would 'Little Children' be without the solid performances? Kate Winslet is electrifying as Sarah Pierce. Patrick Wilson is quite alright. Sadly, Jennifer Connelly has little to do but just in that one scene at the dinner table (with Sarah and Brad) she proves again what an excellent actress she is. Jackie Earle Haley too stands out in a difficult role while Noah Emmerich is loud at times but okay otherwise. Phyllis Somerville shines.

While I noticed that many people felt that 'Little Children' was vulgar because of the sex scenes. I thought the scenes were quite sensual and contributed well to the film. I do not understand why people have a problem with the character Ronnie being someone you can sympathize with rather than hate. I liked that the character was portrayed as a flawed human who knows that he has a problem rather than some kind of a monster. There are a few disturbing sequences which can irritate some people.

To sum it up, 'Little Children' is like two films in one...where it would have been better as two. At times it appears to be pretentious and the lethargic pace does not help. However, it has its moments, great performances, a dazzling soundtrack, fine camera-work and makes its point (even though it could have done that more effectively).

Unsympathetic portrait of small town lives which never quite achieves its contradictory ambitions

[moonspinner55 · 6/10 · 12 July 2010]

Another fascinating, flawed film by writer-producer-director Todd Field, who co-adapted the screenplay with Tom Perrotta from Perrotta's novel. Handsome stay-at-home dad in a stifling suburb, slowly and quietly being emasculated by his documentary-filmmaker spouse, has an affair with an unfulfilled housewife in the neighborhood; meanwhile, a sex-offender recently paroled has moved into town and is being harassed by an ex-policeman, who has his own tragic history. An occasionally effective tapestry of dramatic storytelling, yet one waits in vain for big, revealing scenes that never arrive. An even headier problem may be that this particular group of troubled (and selfish) people are never made embraceable to the audience...are any of these characters worth caring about? Field intertwines the smaller bits of the plot--the minutiae--together successfully, but he is unable to chart a satisfying course through the culmination of events, thereby reaching an unrewarding conclusion. There are rich, intuitive moments and performances, but the film derails at a crucial point in the story--with about 10 minutes left on the clock--and this leaves the audience feeling somewhat emotionally deprived. **1/2 from ****

Love the Children

[ClaytonDavis · 10/10 · 9 October 2006]

The acclaimed director of "In the Bedroom" brings a brand new type of adulterous love tale. Todd Field co-adapts Tom Perrotta's novel and never leaves the source material unattended. The film is multi-layered with subtle undertones and illustrious questions wrapped into a parable of two people Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson) and Sarah Pierce, (Kate Winslet) individuals that feel so disenchanted with existence that they find "comfort" in one another. Brad is married to Kathy, (Jennifer Connelly) a beautiful Documentary film maker that pushes her husband to pass the Bar Exam that he's successfully failed twice. She sends him on nightly trips to the library to study where Brad often gets sidetracked into watching a couple of young skaters, skate around. Sarah is working on her dissertation and retires to the playground everyday with her daughter Lucy, to reminisce with the women of the neighborhood. Sarah is married to Richard, an awkward man with underlying motives and fantasies. Although his vanishing in the film is as awkward as he is.

Upon talking about raising children and busy schedules, the women of the neighborhood are delighted with the return of Brad a.k.a. "The Prom King," who indulges their erotic fantasies. The attraction between Sarah and Brad isn't as obvious from the beginning but a small bet will change that. The two acquire at first, a friendship in the interest of simple companionship, a get away from their spouses, where they could feel support. After the sexual tension is ignited, it remains there through trips to the park, pool and Sarah's infamous laundry room.

Todd Field's brutal honesty of adulthood in Suburbia is strikingly palpable and he never leaves the mind of the characters. Unfortunately Field and Perrotta often bring many questions about morality and judgment to the table and leave the subjects murky. The adaptation is great but there are so many points and features to make in this narrative, the two writers couldn't tackle each task. The dialogue is always engaging and inviting for the viewer; I always felt the need to listen to every word.

The performances for the most part are remarkable. Patrick Wilson's "Brad" is extremely character-flawed. His immaturity is evident in every scene and Wilson does an impressive job of portraying that. Brad is stuck in a world, a world somewhere in between high school graduation and yesterday's pasta dinner. His identity seeking is never exposed until the meeting of Sarah and his immaturity is never more manifested until the finale. The underdeveloped character of Kathy is sometimes bothersome but with the flow of the story it fits the aura of the picture. Jennifer Connelly does well with her minimal screen time but it isn't the marvel of the film that stands out like other low-screen time performances have been in the past. Also, the great Noah Emmerich and Phyllis Somerville are great in their respective roles.

The two standouts lay in the unknown comeback of Jackie Earle Haley, who plays Ronald McGovern, a recently released pedophile searching for a new beginning in a town unkind to the power of forgiveness and profound origination. In Haley, the viewer finds the most sympathy of all the players and this viewer was delighted to find it. In no way are people accepting of pedophilia, but we can start to sympathize with anyone who yearns for the restart of any kind and becomes bewildered and astray in the process. Haley's "Ronnie" is so tortured in his soul but does find security and contentment in his loving mother. She offers solace and guidance in Ronnie's rebuilding of life that adds to the atmosphere and provides a beautiful emotional center to the "Children." The other standout could be no other than the most talented young actress working today, Kate Winslet. Her "Sarah," like "Ronnie" has a tortured persona along with a yearn for happiness that is missing in her life. The symbolism of trains in the film gave amazing insight to what Sarah and Brad were really about. Winslet falls inside of "Sarah" and never comes to the surface. At 31, Winslet is still thinking of different ways to enchant the audience and give us something new every time. The vivacity of "Sarah" is sometimes hard to swallow because of her priorities with her child and Brad but in the finale you will feel comfort in the choice of her character. But this is not by any means, the best performance of her career but a definite contender nonetheless in the competitive Actress race.

The best part of the film is the complete wrapping of it in general. Despite the many questions left unanswered, I have never felt so satisfied with the resolution of a dramatic picture like "Little Children." There is however, a coy hollowness at the center of the film but the rest makes up for seemingly unavoidable flaws that came about. Oscar consideration should focus on Picture, Director, Actress, Supporting Actor, and Adapted Screenplay and hopefully that can be in its future. This is a very artsy type movie, not for everyone, but if the Academy is feeling like nominating a "House of Sand and Fog" meets "In the Bedroom" with a subtle side of "Closer" then we'll have our dramatic independent film of the year in the Oscar race.

Grade: ***1/2/****

Odd Movie

[robwealer · 6/10 · 4 August 2007]

Script I think had more potential than how it was finally put together. Narrator was horrid and could certainly have been reconsidered or redone, less deadpan. He sounded like a male version of "Desperate Housewives" but not really pulling it off. This film also pretended to an insight it didn't really own and NONE of the characters were really likable. The film also relied on urban relationship myths quiet heavily, portraying them as gospel truth, and regularly founded flawed and unevolved insight on them, which was the real problem with this film. There are some highhanded hopes for in depth, truth revealing and crushing of delusions indicated in the direction of the early script but it's poor structure leaves the turning points under served, basically orphans. All in all, a depressing look at a depressing subject, unredeemed.

Know it is getting great reviews but did not like this film.

Superb

[chocobotkid · 10/10 · 22 September 2006]

I had the pleasure of seeing the premiere of "Little Children" at Telluride. The incomprable Mr.Feild hid behind the curtain near the concession at the back of the Nugget Theater wringing his hands, looking a wee bit nauseous. It was all very endearing. The film is superb. Amongst the American fare it tops my list of films fromTelluride, next to the incomprable 'Day Night Day Night' directed by Julia Loktev.

For me, it was all about Jackie Earle Haley. Haley sneaks onto the screen 45 minutes into the narrative bursting the happy bubble of familiar ups and downs of married with children life. The result unnerving edgy tension that could be cut with a knife. Haley's performance is vulnerable, awkward and possibly the strongest male role to light up the screen this year. Haley deserves accolades, praise and loads of attention. He's been a favorite darling of mine for ages...something I had the good fortune of recounting to Feild after the screening.

Feild provides many questions and very few answers. Haley's character may have been released from jail for indecent exposure to a minor, yet Feild does a delicate balancing act without faltering on the side of "good guy/ bad guy". This is NOT a film about pedophiles. This is a film about faults, judgments, weaknesses that consume, chew one up and spits you out again. And in the end the entire paradigm of suburban life has been twisted, shaken, pushed and pulled.

There is tragedy, openness, shifts, that do not add up to ultimate conclusions. This complex tale weaves passion, disillusionment, love, lust, desire, ambivalence. But most importantly, the tender web of Mother-Child relations, WITHOUT ever vilifying Mother. Feild breaks from this poisonous, obsessive, castrating, oedipal mother-subject paradigm and addresses the people who float in and out of crisis above and beyond being tied to their social roles and traditional moral codes.

Winslet encapsulates the awkward intellectual mom, who loves her daughter, but has very very human ambivalence towards this 24/7 duty of unconditional love/acceptance and never ending giving. Finally, she decides to give something back to herself, by playing out a torrid love affair with the Prom King (Patrick Wilson) another character ripe with flaws and exudes humanness.

This should win many many many accolades for 2006, it's a rare stand out. A powerful disturbingly familiar tale played out eloquently, and held at benign distance via the brilliant use of odd narration. It's a strange convention, but Feild masters this as he skewers and satirizes and describes it's subjects with authority. The narration was pleasantly reminiscent of "Fishing with John", often obvious, but nicely pushing the plot along with often more than a hint of humor. The serious tone of the narrator serves to punctuate the utter ridiculous paradox of the banalities of being 'married with children' and having a flashy adventurous love affair in and around the locations of everyday stay at home summer existence; the park, the pool, the evening football game.

The Affair never reveals itself as the be-all-and-end-all, answer to disillusionment and sadness of suburban middle class marriage. Nor, the cause-effect that sets the plot in motion. Even more satisfyingly, the affair does not legitimate the happy normative narrative ending.

A typical human struggle with an ending that was anything but typical.

[NoLittleLamb · 6/10 · 17 June 2007]

Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson star in this film about the constant fight between temptation and duty. This film is a portrait of the never-ending human struggle to do what one knows is right while trying to resist the lure of rebellion.

This film was full of fascinating characters that added many layers to the tale. Sarah the heart broken housewife, Brad the emasculated househusband, Larry the lost and confused ex-cop, and Ronnie the unreformed pedophile trying just trying to please his mother. I found all the actors to be very believable and they were able to convince me of the story they were telling. Kate Winslet was brought back to her Beautiful Creature days, certainly not anything like Rose from Titanic or that character in The Holiday. I also found Jackie Earle Haley the man who played Ronnie to be really creepy in a good way. Just as we began to feel bad for this social outcast, he turned out to be just as creepy as we were hoping he wasn't.

There are so many words I could use to describe the ending of this film, powerful, shocking, disgusting, depressing, poetically just…I was not at all expecting the violent ends to which Ronnie reacted to his mothers powerful words, I was sad that no one really got what they wanted out of life in the end, but mostly I enjoyed the hidden honorableness to the ending. While it may have been against their will, everyone ended up doing the right thing when it was all said and don. Sarah and Brain stayed with their spouses and their children, Larry got to be the hero he once was, and Ronnie did what he had to do to make sure that he would never hurt anyone again. The right thing was done, no matter how much it hurt.

The whole movie had this weird narration, which I found to be rather annoying, but it added to the "here are some characters in a book" vibe which I think the movie was going for. There were also some sex scenes that I didn't find totally unnecessary, but I do think they took away from a potentially higher level of dignity and class that this movie could have had.

This movie was very interesting to say the least. I prefer my movies to be slightly more upbeat, but this one was thoughtful and suspenseful enough to keep me enjoying it, and the hidden "poetic justness" of it all really made me like it even more. Little Children is certainly not for everyone, but if you're looking for something different, then don't hesitate to take a look at it.

Back In the Bedroom

[Rindiana · 5/10 · 27 October 2010]

Another pseudo-probing look into suburban hell, this sedate cousin of "American Beauty" marks Field's second failure to find adequate ways of grappling fragile relationships American style.

Just as it was the case with the director's highly overrated "In the Bedroom", this all too smug and superficial adult dramedy goes the artsy route without ever finding a deeper reasoning for its "critical" attitudes. The pic can't even decide which standpoint to take towards its flawed protagonists.

The good ensemble actors aren't to blame, and some scenes are effective in a manipulative sort of way, but the contrived ending with all its annoying martyrdom (and silly coincidences) ruins a partly interesting character study.

5 out of 10 weekday relationships

Desperate Housewives with a bite - and then some

[endymionng · 10/10 · 18 December 2007]

Fantastic movie with layers upon layers to analyze - Acting is out of this world, but as numerous people no doubt have commented on that, I would like to direct your attention to the fantastic sound editing in this movie. Set in suburbia, where people drive to the train station, we don't actually see a train ever in the movie although one of the main characters is supposed to take the train but skips it for an adulterous affair. The Freudian connotation is obvious, but the funny thing is that the SOUND of a train is heard numerous times throughout the movie also symbolizing the desire to get away (and hop on a train). Also pay attention to the sound in the pool scenes, which makes fantastic use of the surround possibilities as do the classic scene with the numerous clocks and the scenes in the playground and ballpark. Quiet music is also used to underline subtle but poignant scenes instead of using a stupid pop song to spell out the message as is usually the case in modern movies... And last but not least the movies has the decency to know when it is time to be quiet and just observe. A movie that respects its viewers and gives you something to think about.