I watched a movie last week which has stayed with me for a few days, and been digesting it ever since. In essence, I experienced the film to depict how relative ‘normal’ is, and how easy it is to point a finger, yet all is more oft than not what the fascade seems. Thought provoking and challenging.
Have attached a review by Peter Travers on rollingstone.com.
Have a watch an let know your thoughts on the piece.
Little Children
Starring: Kate Winslet, Jennifer Connelly, Patrick Wilson, Jackie Earle Haley, Gregg Edelman
Directed by: Todd Field RS: 3.5of 4 Stars Average User Rating: 3.5 of 4 Stars 2006 New Line Cinema
Don’t be put off by the sweetie-poo title. Adultery, Internet porn, pedophilia,
mutilation and murder all figure in Little Children. This unnervingly funny and
quietly devastating film — director Todd Field’s first since his smash 2001
debut with In the Bedroom — pulls you in like a magnetic-force field. For
starters, the movie refuses to slavishly butt-kiss its source, the justly
acclaimed 2004 novel by Tom Perrotta (Election). Perrotta isn’t pissed; he joined
Field in the nip-tuck process in the hope of creating something freshly fierce.
Mission accomplished. Except for a few clumsy slips, especially at the end, the
film rides its dramatic challenges in perfect pitch.
A never-better Kate Winslet goes so deep into her character you can almost feel
her nerve endings. Her Sarah is a former college feminist shocked to find herself
a clueless wife and mom married to a jerk (Gregg Edelman) whom she catches jerking
off to the Slutty Kay Web site. The film’s narrator (Will Lyman of PBS’s Frontline)
provides the right note of ironic wit, even as the plot gets darker.
Field shows his mastery early, in a park scene with Sarah and three other moms ogling
Brad (Patrick Wilson), a failed lawyer who tends to his son while his wife,
Kathy (Jennifer Connelly), makes TV documentaries. Sarah accepts the dare to get some
details about this so-called Prom King. When they share an impulsive kiss, the two
become social pariahs. It’s a daring, wickedly erotic scene. Winslet and Wilson turn
up the heat, but each actor incisively shows how Sarah and Brad are victims of their
own childish illusions. They spend the summer idling by the pool, she living as Madame
Bovary in her lit-major fantasies, he preferring to watch teen skateboarders instead
of studying for the bar.
It’s at the pool that the film’s central incident occurs. Sex offender Ronald James
McGorvey, played by former child star Jackie Earle Haley of The Bad News Bears, has
been living with his mother, May (Phyllis Somerville), since he served two years for
flashing a child. Now Ronald has decided to swim with the kids. Police are called.
Larry (Noah Emmerich), an ex-cop with his own secrets, harasses Ronald. It’s here that
Field and Perrotta tackle a hot topic with more compassion than in the novel. The
scenes between Ronald (Haley’s boldly implosive performance will haunt your dreams)
and his mother (the magnificent Somerville deserves award attention) are no less scary
for being achingly poignant. The laughs catch in your throat in Little Children. It’s
more than a moral fable about the traps we set for ourselves by not growing up. Field
performs a high-wire act that balances hard truth and hard-won tenderness. Most movies
fade from the memory. This one sticks.
PETER TRAVERS
(Posted: Oct 5, 2006)
