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Review #362 of 365
Movie Review of Little Children (2006) [R] 130 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $14.75
Where Viewed: Landmark Mayan, Denver, CO
When 1st Seen: 9 January 2007
Time: 8:15 p.m.
Film's Official Website
DVD Release Date: 6 May 2008 (click date to purchase or pre-order)
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Directed by: Todd Field (In the Bedroom)
Screenplay by: Todd Field (In the Bedroom) and Tom Perrotta (Bad Haircut) based on Tom Perrotta's novel
Featured Cast (Where You Might Remember Him/Her From):
Kate Winslet (The Holiday) • Patrick Wilson (Running with Scissors) • Jennifer Connelly (Blood Diamond) • Sadie Goldstein (debut) • Ty Simpkins (War of the Worlds) • Gregg Edelman (Spider-Man 2) • Noah Emmerich (Cellular) • Jackie Earle Haley (All the King's Men) • Phyllis Somerville (Swimfan) • Will Lyman ("Commander in Chief")
Soundtrack: order the CD below
Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word or less review of this film]
The surreal preview does the film Little Children justice as it tantalizes one into wondering just what the film is about while wisely foreshadowing a tension-packed drama written as tautly as the spring in a child's first wrist watch who worries it will run down if he forgets to wind it every minute. Yet, through some writer's magic, time in the film seems to stand still allowing many days to pass in mere hours. More happens in the lives of these people than seems possible given the running time. The story opens with some puzzling glimpses of Hummel® figurine faces and clocks ticking. A narrator's voice (Will Lyman) begins to introduce us to our main characters: Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet) and her mundane daily existence of dealing with a three-year old daughter, Lucy (Sadie Goldstein) who clearly skipped the terrible twos and moves straight on to the stubborn threes, whom she can barely stand; and the 'prom king', Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson) whose similarly routine life has him playing house-husband though he seems to adore his offspring more, Aaron (Ty Simpkins). Their lives collide one day at the playground where Sarah brings Lucy every day to play and get some time away from her demands and annoying behaviors and Brad occasionally brings Aaron when he is in the mood for a change of scene. The coffee clutch mothers of the playground have dubbed him 'the prom king' for his youthful good looks as if he was the one they had all wished to marry. Truthfully, he probably was the prom king as he was the quarterback of his high school football team, but his life after that took turns differently than most would have imagined. He went on to wed a PBS documentary filmmaker who runs his life like clockwork right down to questioning his need to have a subscription to Sports Illustrated and a cell phone.
"…tension-packed drama written as tautly as the spring in a child's first wrist watch…an engrossing script rich with layers delving into the raw and carnal struggle against temptation positively and artistically coalesce to form one of the very best films of 2006."
He's supposed to be preparing to take the Bar exam for the third time; but, every day, on the way to the library to study, he finds himself sitting on a bench an watching a bunch of teen skater boys do tricks on rails instead. That morning at the park, Sarah meets Brad by the swing having been challenged by the coffee clutch mom's to get his phone numbers. She comes out of the encounter with an electrifying kiss instead that simultaneously unlocks their repressed inner passions while sending the observant moms into a frenzy not wanting their little ones to witness this adulterous behavior.
The kiss at the park that sparks a romance between Sarah (Kate Winslet) and Brad (Patrick Wilson)(Click Still Photo to Purchase)
Their circumstances and home life draw them into a fairly clandestine relationship meeting every afternoon during the week for long cuddly, family-like encounters on a grassy, shady area of the town pool. Sarah, having discovered that her husband, Richard (Gregg Edelman) is more into internet porn than into his wife, finds so much comfort and adoration from Brad as to fill her growing needs. Meanwhile, Brad's wife, Kathy (Jennifer Connelly) constantly on heaving on the pressure regarding the Bar exam and their lack of financial stability due to his lack of a job, leaves him hungry for fun and love in his life. Truthfully, the two probably could have kept up this poolside relationship forever, were it not for a rainstorm that finally brings them together with napping children alone in Sarah gigantic home. Their passions overtake their sanity as they enter perilous waters and engage in a romantic and passionate, escalating love affair. The back story going on all this time concerns the recent parole of a reputed child predator named Ronnie McGorvey (Jackie Earle Haley). As the narrator tells us, he was imprisoned for two years for indecent exposure in front of a minor. He's returned home to live with his mother, May (Phyllis Sommerville), and try to make sense of his life. She, the owner of the huge Hummel® figurine set we saw at the beginning, works to try to get him back out into the game of life and refuses to accept that he is truly mentally ill. A former police officer and coincidental acquaintance of Brad, Larry Hedges (Noah Emmerich) has made it his mission to put up posters of Ronnie to ensure that everyone within five miles of the village will recognize this former felon whom he believes should still be in prison. The lives of Larry and Ronnie constantly intersect with that of Brad and Sarah in curious ways. In the end, everything comes a turning when Brad and Sarah's rebellion toward their hidden life and needs for each other, strike head on like competing steam engines with the reality of the worlds in which they legally and morally live.
Sarah (Kate Winslet) and Brad (Patrick Wilson) protect their kids at the pool.(Click Still Photo to Purchase)
At the core, the story scrutinizes the roots of temptation and the lack of will most people have to resist it. From where does the power of resistance come? Is there a well from which most people draw while others either know not of its location, lack the strength to pull from it, choose to avoid it, or are mentally incapable of controlling it? Sarah and Brad know their affair is wrong, but the power to resist their urges fails them. Ronnie, try as he might, cannot overcome his urge to be around little children. Larry succumbs to his beliefs that he was put off the police force and onto his personal crusade against Ronnie leading him to do very unsavory things to Ronnie's mother and her home. Temptation is met, in each case, with excuses and justifications which then give the weak soul the permission to go ahead with that which each knows is wrong. How can something so wrong feel so good, so empowering, so right? With additional legal and moral questions involved, each finds him or her self in a tangled mess with no clear ways out. The end proves the devastating consequences of failure to resist temptation in varying awful degrees. It does not tie up anything cleanly, forcing viewers to draw their own conclusions as to the individual fate of each transgressor, but hinting or suggesting that redemption if not salvation is only possible through regret.
Director / co-screenwriter, Todd Field, absent from the directing scene for far too long a period, has a unique signature and eye for how to take a mere film and turn it into something artful and more meaningful than even the best directors of our time. This screenplay, helmed by Mr. Field and author of the original novel, Tom Perrotta, allows him the freedom to deliver something more than a story. There is a subtle and elegant beauty to the film that reveals so much more than that which the narrator and actors reveal. There is a systems theory revelation where parts interact with emerging, unexpected properties grown organically from the glances, gestures, and unspoken words between the characters. This film, like the subject matter or not, is one of the more artfully and aesthetically rendered this year, a true masterpiece of filmmaking. All great films require a great story. This story is pretty good. It's the depth of what's in here, however, that elevates it beyond a pretty good story, and sets up the potential for a clever director to create a remarkable, passionate, revelatory case study into human nature that's as fascinating as it is vulnerable, shocking as it is tender, and poignant as it is mysterious. The key roles of Sarah, Brad, Larry, and Ronnie were cast brilliantly. Each corresponding actor has the curious tendency to look almost awkward in his or her own body permitting subsequent transformations in comfort and self-assuredness. Kate Winslet, for example, takes Sarah from mousey to swimsuit model with curly wisps of hair, and Patrick Wilson changes his odd spring-steppy gait in the park to a regal walk as he woos Sarah by the pool. Thus is a film where I checked my watch a few times not because I was wondering how soon it would be over but, rather, because it seemed impossible that only two hours had gone by. Honestly, I mean no exaggeration when I write that time truly stands still during the film especially during moments when the electric connection between Brad and Sarah supercharges permitting so many who have resisted the very same temptations to launch into a vicarious love affair of their own through the passion of these two star-crossed lovers. Tom Newman's score and the pure silence permitted by Tom Field's direction—he does not fall victim as so many directors do, to fill the emptiness of a moment with background music—along with brilliant performances from everyone including the two little kids, strong narration by Will Lyman whose voice enriches without sounding like a voice-over salesmen, and an engrossing script rich with layers delving into the raw and carnal struggle against temptation positively and artistically coalesce to form one of the very best films of 2006.
Director / co-screenwriter, Todd Field, absent from the directing scene for far too long a period, has a unique signature and eye for how to take a mere film and turn it into something artful and more meaningful than even the best directors of our time. This screenplay, helmed by Mr. Field and author of the original novel, Tom Perrotta, allows him the freedom to deliver something more than a story. There is a subtle and elegant beauty to the film that reveals so much more than that which the narrator and actors reveal. There is a systems theory revelation where parts interact with emerging, unexpected properties grown organically from the glances, gestures, and unspoken words between the characters. This film, like the subject matter or not, is one of the more artfully and aesthetically rendered this year, a true masterpiece of filmmaking. All great films require a great story. This story is pretty good. It's the depth of what's in here, however, that elevates it beyond a pretty good story, and sets up the potential for a clever director to create a remarkable, passionate, revelatory case study into human nature that's as fascinating as it is vulnerable, shocking as it is tender, and poignant as it is mysterious. The key roles of Sarah, Brad, Larry, and Ronnie were cast brilliantly. Each corresponding actor has the curious tendency to look almost awkward in his or her own body permitting subsequent transformations in comfort and self-assuredness. Kate Winslet, for example, takes Sarah from mousey to swimsuit model with curly wisps of hair, and Patrick Wilson changes his odd spring-steppy gait in the park to a regal walk as he woos Sarah by the pool. Thus is a film where I checked my watch a few times not because I was wondering how soon it would be over but, rather, because it seemed impossible that only two hours had gone by. Honestly, I mean no exaggeration when I write that time truly stands still during the film especially during moments when the electric connection between Brad and Sarah supercharges permitting so many who have resisted the very same temptations to launch into a vicarious love affair of their own through the passion of these two star-crossed lovers. Tom Newman's score and the pure silence permitted by Tom Field's direction—he does not fall victim as so many directors do, to fill the emptiness of a moment with background music—along with brilliant performances from everyone including the two little kids, strong narration by Will Lyman whose voice enriches without sounding like a voice-over salesmen, and an engrossing script rich with layers delving into the raw and carnal struggle against temptation positively and artistically coalesce to form one of the very best films of 2006.
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Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word review of this film]
Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word review of this film]
Other Projects Featuring Little Children (2006)
Cast Members
Jake T. Austin
• Kate Winslet • Patrick WilsonJennifer Connelly
• Sadie Goldstein • Ty SimpkinsGregg Edelman
• Noah Emmerich • Jackie Earle HaleyPhyllis Somerville
• Will LymanDirector / Co-screenwriter
Todd Field
Screenwriter and Novelist
Tom Perrotta
| Book | VHS | DVD |
Little Children (2006) Review-lite [150-word cap]
Will Lyman's narration introduces the characters at once in Todd Field's film based on Tom Perrotta's book Little Children: Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet) and her mundane existence with daughter, Lucy (age 3) whom she can barely stand; and the 'prom king', Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson) whose similarly routine life has him playing house-husband with his baby son. Their lives collide at the playground when an electrifying kiss unlocks their repressed inner passions. The story scrutinizes the roots of temptation and the lack of will most have to resist it. A subtle, elegant beauty to the film reveals so much more than that which the narrator and actors give up. Time stands still as Tom Newman's score and the silence permitted by Field's direction along with brilliant performances, strong narration, and a taut script reveling in the carnal struggle against temptation artistically coalesce in one of the best films of 2006.
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