Little Children (2006)

February 12, 2009

DVD, Seattle, WA

** / ****

By Scott Muoio

A lot of interesting ideas get thrown into the cinematic melting pot that is Todd Field’s Little Children. Too bad the film’s haphazard focus and trite commentary make most of them more tiresome and silly than ponderous and engaging.

The film’s main storyline involves two bored primary care givers, Sarah and Brad, and the extramarital relationship they develop. After a goofy and wholly unbelievable initial encounter at the park, which climaxes in a major smooch neither can get out of their minds, the adulterers pal around outside the gaze of their respective inattentive spouses. A droll narrator commentates on the situation while Sarah’s obnoxiously smug, know-it-all female friends shun her for breaking the holy covenant of loveless marriage.

Meanwhile, Ronnie, a middle-aged convicted child molester has moved into the neighborhood and drawn the scorn and outrage of the neighborhood. One neighborhood cop in particular, Larry, goes so far as to deface, intimidate, and threaten Ronnie to the point where his mother is beside herself trying to set her boy on the path of redemption. Both stories meet in a round about way as touch football crosses paths with a public pool and Kate Winslet shows the breadth of her excellent bosom.

The “little children” in the film’s title are presumably not Brad and Sarah’s children, but rather the adults, themselves. What statement the movie is trying to make about the self-centered pair, their stale, yuppie neighbors, their boring, inconsequential spouses, or the child molester who can’t shake his perversion, I am not sure. A final voice over about not being able to change the past and having to start somewhere to change the future sheds no light on the subject, at least not to me. Then again, what sense does trying to convince us that Kate Winslet is the least attractive of her bitchy friends make (another of the film’s short comings)? And come to think about it, what are any of these people doing other than what the script demands? I’m not saying these characters are completely unrealistic but they certainly are quite a bit unbelievable, especially for a movie that takes itself so deadly serious.

Little Children has the ambition. It is just missing the focus to be worthwhile.

Director: Todd Field

Producer: Todd Field, Albert Berger, Ron Yerxa

Writer: Tom Perrotta (Novel), Todd Field, Tom Perrotta

Starring: Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Noah Emmerich, Jackie Earle Haley

Original Music: Thomas Newman

Copyright 2009, Scott Muoio and Undependent Media. You may link to this review but may not reproduce it in full for your own means.