LITTLE CHILDREN
The little elephant of guilt and fear looming
large in American suburbia
PopcornReel.com Movie Review: "Little Children"
By Omar P.L. Moore/October 20, 2006
Escape from
Stepford-staidness: A Greek chorus of judgmental suburban mothers chat as Sarah
(Kate Winslet) looks for an escape from the ordinary in "Little Children". (Photo: New Line)
The best American adult drama of the year, "Little Children" is a
cautionary tale of a guilt-ridden citizenry that don't heed the clarion call to
"love thy neighbor as you love yourself" -- yet that in itself is debatable, as
adulterous relationships and all manner of improprieties and illicit behaviors
rage in Todd Field's supremely absorbing and thought-provoking satirical
fable-nightmare. "Little Children" is adapted by Field and novelist Tom
Perrotta, from Perrotta's novel of the same name. It packs a punch because
it (if you have not read the book) takes uncertain directions and opens paths of
suspense that occasionally make the film a gripping and unsettling experience.
"Little Children" is narrated by longtime Stanley Kubrick friend and film
collaborator Leon Vitali (dubbed as an "oddly familiar man" in the film's
credits). The narration floats in and out of the story and sounds
distinctly as if it belonged in a wildlife program or National Geographic
special. This satirical device works very well for some comic relief from
what is at times a claustrophobic film. For example, there are many
close-up two-shot camera shots of characters, which have the effect of trapping
the characters up against a fishbowl for the audience to gawk at.
At the same time these characters including Sarah (Kate Winslet) and Brad
(Patrick Wilson) are trying the break through the seemingly impenetrable shield
of convention in childlike ways. They are choked with their mundane lives,
existing only to see the next day arrive. Both Sarah, a stay-at-home
mother whose husband Richard (Gregg Edelman) is obsessed with pornography and
one "Slutty Kay". He masturbates as if there is no tomorrow with panties
stuck to his face, oblivious to anything around him. For him, he has
escaped.
For Sarah escape comes in the form of Patrick, escape that is slickly initiated
in an innocuous, but naive encounter in the local playground. Constantly
engaged (and silently enraged) by a smug, self-righteous suburban Greek chorus
of three Stepford Wives, Sarah is yearning for a new life. Patrick is too
-- faced with a demanding and removed wife Kathy (Jennifer Connelly) who is
pressuring him to take the Massachusetts Bar Exam for a third time in the hopes
of becoming a lawyer and bringing in some income that Kathy's documentary
filmmaking alone cannot. Patrick, a father affectionately dubbed the "Prom
King" by the three wives in the park, has other ideas for freeing up an ordinary
suffocating life.
Larry (Noah Emmerich) sounds the noisy clarion call to
rouse the neighborhood sex offender in "Little Children".
(Photo: Robert Zuckerman/New Line)
"Little Children" however is not about any of the above
situations -- it is about one character that the neighborhood (and the audience)
sees and fears -- he is shot in an objectively detached way -- a sex offender
who has been released back into the community on the outskirts of Cambridge,
Massachusetts. As played by Jackie Earle Haley, the sex offender Ronnie
draws the audience to anger, fury and eventually a measure of sympathy as he is
scorned and ridiculed, especially by an obsessive neighbor with demons of his
own, an ex-cop (Noah Emmerich) who is hardly one to throw stones. His
actions, like the rest of his "holier-than-thou" neighbors, are propelled by
fear and self-avoidance, and a willful blindness to both conscience and
consequence. [As an aside, the relationship between Ronnie and his mother
May (Phyllis Somerville) is a softer, much less horrific version of Norman Bates
and his psychopathic "mother".]
In that flawed population called humanity, fear is the great seducer, more so
than the steamy sex between Sarah and Patrick, and "Little Children" makes this
clear. Parent-less parents, employing childlike (but far less innocent)
methods to inoculate themselves from the truth of their empty lives. Sarah
is perhaps the closest to realizing that living a childlike-fairly tale as an
adult isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Winslet gives her rare power
in a scene where she joins a book club that discusses the meaning of the book
"Madame Bovary" -- the scene is a metaphor for her awakening and attaining
dreams that her conventional trappings have failed to offer her.
Background and crisis in Sarah's life have much to do with this.
As for acting, Winslet's performance is a good one; Haley's is a great one.
Gregg Edelson's role as Richard the porn addict, has a comic exaggeration to it
as does his scene at a dinner with Sarah. There are also suspicions deeply
embedded in a creepy, disturbing scene featuring Jean (Helen Carey), a
baby-sitter supervising Sarah's child -- Jean also takes power-walks at night
with Sarah.
Todd Field directs the film with a slow-paced but volatile approach to some
climatic scenes and keeps tension barely percolating beneath the surface.
There are some well-shot scenes and cinematographer Antonio Calvache knows how
to capture the roll of an eyeball as a character contemplates something that he
or she hears. The screenplay that Field and Perrotta adapt is
tightly-wound, with some real adult conversation, humor and childish barbs.
Some of the adults -- most of them -- behave like children; the way Larry the
ex-cop bellows loudly in the neighborhood, the way Patrick daydreams about a
forbidden kiss, the way Sarah feels reborn after receiving a gift in the mail.
There is a thread of parentless existence in "Little Children", including in
Kathy's documentary in which a child who has recently lost his father in the
Iraq war talks about the painful void in a way more maturely and articulately
than any adult character in the film ever could.
"Little Children" is rated R for strong sexuality and nudity, language and
some disturbing content. The film's duration is two hours and 10 minutes.
Copyright 2006. PopcornReel.com. All Rights Reserved.
Very suspicious: Kathy (Jennifer
Connelly) and the tryst of her husband Brad (Patrick Wilson) and Sarah (Kate
Winslet) in Todd Field's "Little Children." (Photos: Robert Zuckerman/New
Line)