Writer-director Todd Field's last important film was 2001's "In the Bedroom," a terrific little movie that explored human relationships, family problems, and consequent conflicts. His 2006 production, "Little Children," attempts the same kind of themes, but this time with mixed results. Depending on your point of view, "Little Children" is an absorbing drama, an exaggerated melodrama, or an outright dark comedy, but in never coming to grips with any of these tones, the film rather diminishes its own good intentions.
"Little Children" has a lot in common with "In the Bedroom" in terms of its serious human relationships, and it also borrows heavily from the Oscar-winning "American Beauty" in terms of its humor. It might seem a cheap shot for Field and his co-screenwriter Tom Perrotta (who based the screenplay on his own novel) to place their story in so obvious a setting as an all-white, middle-class, suburban village--the fictional East Wyndam, MA--since Hollywood has already satirized this segment of society so often, and since filmmakers seem to think that conservative, white-collar suburbanites make easy targets for ridicule (for good or for bad). Well, cheap shot or no, the satiric part of the story works fine. It's when the filmmakers try to change the tone of their satire to one of dead earnestness that the film begins to sound preachy.
Here's the thing: Everyone we meet in the movie is unhappy, everyone has a problem of some kind. The first main character is Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet), a thirty-something mother, unhappy in her marriage. She was an English major in college, which, according to the filmmakers, gives her an intellectual mind, a liberal attitude, and no useful skills. She longs for something more than taking care of a three-year-old daughter and worrying about her husband (Gregg Edelman) and his addiction to Internet porn sites. The other main character is Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson), a thirty-something housefather, unhappy as he struggles to pass the bar exam and unhappy in his marriage to a beautiful and successful psychologist (Jennifer Connelly). Brad's wife seems to him more interested in her work and their young son than in Brad. Naturally, Sarah and Brad meet one day and find a mutual attraction that soon blossoms into a full-blown affair.
This troubled-romance part of the story is realistic enough, while maintaining the aura of a satiric soap opera, except for one problem: The movie would have us believe that Winslet's character is a plain-Jane type, dull and unattractive, part of Brad's falling for her because she is so different from his more-glamorous wife. But Winslet is far too pretty to be effective in the role, so as an audience we have to use our imagination.
The supporting characters are either weirdos or stereotypes, both of which work well in the satiric parts of the story, if not so well in the realistic parts. Jackie Earle Haley has a standout role as a pedophile, Ronnie McGorvey, who has returned to the community to live with his mother (Phyllis Somerville) after being released from a two-year prison stretch for exposing himself to a minor. Haley pretty much steals the show, and I would rather have seen the whole movie built around his character than around the more-boring Sarah and Brad. Then there's Noah Emmerich as Larry Hedges, one of Brad's friends, an ex-cop who is the head of a "Committee of Concerned Parents" harassing McGorvey with hate messages and hostile leaflets. Needless to say, Hedges has dark secrets of his own hidden away.
Among the other characters are the typically narrow-minded folks one finds in message movies: guys who live and die by football; mothers who have regimented routines for their children and who want to castrate the pedophile; and a mother-in-law from hell whom Brad's wife, getting suspicious of his behavior, brings in to live with them and follow Brad everywhere he goes. We've seen these bits before, but they're worthy of repetition.
I also liked most of director Fields' simple, straightforward storytelling manner. He eschews the current trendy style of quick edits, bizarre color pallettes, and oddball camera angles for a more old-fashioned method of point and shoot. On only one occasion does he indulge himself with a split screen. But I said "most." Unfortunately, he chooses to use an omniscient narrator (Will Lyman, uncredited) with a mellifluous voice-over to get us into the minds of the characters. This narrator sounds like one of those guys who narrates weighty documentaries on TV (and, in fact, Lyman has done any number of weighty documentaries for TV). At first, I thought the narration was so corny, it was a part of the joke, but the narration continues long into the film and long past the point of its being funny. Maybe Field really meant for us to take it seriously. If so, it was a mistake.
Anyway, I'm sure that Field wants us to see that the world is not black-and-white, good-or-bad, but that so-called "normal" people are quirky individuals after all. The best scene in this regard is Sarah's attendance at a neighborhood book-club meeting, where a group of women are discussing Flaubert's "Madame Bovary." It is both comic and dramatic, with the Flaubert character seeming to mirror Sarah's own dilemma. The book, Sarah tells the group, is about "the hunger for alternatives, and the refusal to accept a life of unhappiness." It's a good summing up of one of the movie's primary themes.
However, at the same time Field is building up good will in the audience, he is undermining his own characterizations and ideas. For instance, the movie is far too long (at well over two hours) to maintain its grip on the situation. Once it makes its points, which is early on, the rest is redundant. The movie is also much too talky. There are too many characters taking up too much time. I've already mentioned that its intentions are ambivalent, its main character too pretty, and its narration too peculiar. Moreover, the movie's intended shocking ending is disappointing and seems to belie the very essence of the story.
So, "Little Children" is definitely a movie of contrasts. Perhaps that is just what life is like, but the movie piles it on rather thick. "Little Children" is rated R for sex and nudity.
"Little Children" has a lot in common with "In the Bedroom" in terms of its serious human relationships, and it also borrows heavily from the Oscar-winning "American Beauty" in terms of its humor. It might seem a cheap shot for Field and his co-screenwriter Tom Perrotta (who based the screenplay on his own novel) to place their story in so obvious a setting as an all-white, middle-class, suburban village--the fictional East Wyndam, MA--since Hollywood has already satirized this segment of society so often, and since filmmakers seem to think that conservative, white-collar suburbanites make easy targets for ridicule (for good or for bad). Well, cheap shot or no, the satiric part of the story works fine. It's when the filmmakers try to change the tone of their satire to one of dead earnestness that the film begins to sound preachy.
Here's the thing: Everyone we meet in the movie is unhappy, everyone has a problem of some kind. The first main character is Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet), a thirty-something mother, unhappy in her marriage. She was an English major in college, which, according to the filmmakers, gives her an intellectual mind, a liberal attitude, and no useful skills. She longs for something more than taking care of a three-year-old daughter and worrying about her husband (Gregg Edelman) and his addiction to Internet porn sites. The other main character is Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson), a thirty-something housefather, unhappy as he struggles to pass the bar exam and unhappy in his marriage to a beautiful and successful psychologist (Jennifer Connelly). Brad's wife seems to him more interested in her work and their young son than in Brad. Naturally, Sarah and Brad meet one day and find a mutual attraction that soon blossoms into a full-blown affair.
This troubled-romance part of the story is realistic enough, while maintaining the aura of a satiric soap opera, except for one problem: The movie would have us believe that Winslet's character is a plain-Jane type, dull and unattractive, part of Brad's falling for her because she is so different from his more-glamorous wife. But Winslet is far too pretty to be effective in the role, so as an audience we have to use our imagination.
The supporting characters are either weirdos or stereotypes, both of which work well in the satiric parts of the story, if not so well in the realistic parts. Jackie Earle Haley has a standout role as a pedophile, Ronnie McGorvey, who has returned to the community to live with his mother (Phyllis Somerville) after being released from a two-year prison stretch for exposing himself to a minor. Haley pretty much steals the show, and I would rather have seen the whole movie built around his character than around the more-boring Sarah and Brad. Then there's Noah Emmerich as Larry Hedges, one of Brad's friends, an ex-cop who is the head of a "Committee of Concerned Parents" harassing McGorvey with hate messages and hostile leaflets. Needless to say, Hedges has dark secrets of his own hidden away.
Among the other characters are the typically narrow-minded folks one finds in message movies: guys who live and die by football; mothers who have regimented routines for their children and who want to castrate the pedophile; and a mother-in-law from hell whom Brad's wife, getting suspicious of his behavior, brings in to live with them and follow Brad everywhere he goes. We've seen these bits before, but they're worthy of repetition.
I also liked most of director Fields' simple, straightforward storytelling manner. He eschews the current trendy style of quick edits, bizarre color pallettes, and oddball camera angles for a more old-fashioned method of point and shoot. On only one occasion does he indulge himself with a split screen. But I said "most." Unfortunately, he chooses to use an omniscient narrator (Will Lyman, uncredited) with a mellifluous voice-over to get us into the minds of the characters. This narrator sounds like one of those guys who narrates weighty documentaries on TV (and, in fact, Lyman has done any number of weighty documentaries for TV). At first, I thought the narration was so corny, it was a part of the joke, but the narration continues long into the film and long past the point of its being funny. Maybe Field really meant for us to take it seriously. If so, it was a mistake.
Anyway, I'm sure that Field wants us to see that the world is not black-and-white, good-or-bad, but that so-called "normal" people are quirky individuals after all. The best scene in this regard is Sarah's attendance at a neighborhood book-club meeting, where a group of women are discussing Flaubert's "Madame Bovary." It is both comic and dramatic, with the Flaubert character seeming to mirror Sarah's own dilemma. The book, Sarah tells the group, is about "the hunger for alternatives, and the refusal to accept a life of unhappiness." It's a good summing up of one of the movie's primary themes.
However, at the same time Field is building up good will in the audience, he is undermining his own characterizations and ideas. For instance, the movie is far too long (at well over two hours) to maintain its grip on the situation. Once it makes its points, which is early on, the rest is redundant. The movie is also much too talky. There are too many characters taking up too much time. I've already mentioned that its intentions are ambivalent, its main character too pretty, and its narration too peculiar. Moreover, the movie's intended shocking ending is disappointing and seems to belie the very essence of the story.
So, "Little Children" is definitely a movie of contrasts. Perhaps that is just what life is like, but the movie piles it on rather thick. "Little Children" is rated R for sex and nudity.
Writer-director Todd Field's last important film was 2001's "In the Bedroom," a terrific little movie that explored human relationships, family problems, and consequent conflicts. His 2006 production, "Little Children," attempts the same kind of themes, but this time with mixed results. Depending on your point of view, "Little Children" is an absorbing drama, an exaggerated melodrama, or an outright dark comedy, but in never coming to grips with any of these tones, the film rather diminishes its own good intentions.
"Little Children" has a lot in common with "In the Bedroom" in terms of its serious human relationships, and it also borrows heavily from the Oscar-winning "American Beauty" in terms of its humor. It might seem a cheap shot for Field and his co-screenwriter Tom Perrotta (who based the screenplay on his own novel) to place their story in so obvious a setting as an all-white, middle-class, suburban village--the fictional East Wyndam, MA--since Hollywood has already satirized this segment of society so often, and since filmmakers seem to think that conservative, white-collar suburbanites make easy targets for ridicule (for good or for bad). Well, cheap shot or no, the satiric part of the story works fine. It's when the filmmakers try to change the tone of their satire to one of dead earnestness that the film begins to sound preachy.
Here's the thing: Everyone we meet in the movie is unhappy, everyone has a problem of some kind. The first main character is Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet), a thirty-something mother, unhappy in her marriage. She was an English major in college, which, according to the filmmakers, gives her an intellectual mind, a liberal attitude, and no useful skills. She longs for something more than taking care of a three-year-old daughter and worrying about her husband (Gregg Edelman) and his addiction to Internet porn sites. The other main character is Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson), a thirty-something housefather, unhappy as he struggles to pass the bar exam and unhappy in his marriage to a beautiful and successful psychologist (Jennifer Connelly). Brad's wife seems to him more interested in her work and their young son than in Brad. Naturally, Sarah and Brad meet one day and find a mutual attraction that soon blossoms into a full-blown affair.
This troubled-romance part of the story is realistic enough, while maintaining the aura of a satiric soap opera, except for one problem: The movie would have us believe that Winslet's character is a plain-Jane type, dull and unattractive, part of Brad's falling for her because she is so different from his more-glamorous wife. But Winslet is far too pretty to be effective in the role, so as an audience we have to use our imagination.
The supporting characters are either weirdos or stereotypes, both of which work well in the satiric parts of the story, if not so well in the realistic parts. Jackie Earle Haley has a standout role as a pedophile, Ronnie McGorvey, who has returned to the community to live with his mother (Phyllis Somerville) after being released from a two-year prison stretch for exposing himself to a minor. Haley pretty much steals the show, and I would rather have seen the whole movie built around his character than around the more-boring Sarah and Brad. Then there's Noah Emmerich as Larry Hedges, one of Brad's friends, an ex-cop who is the head of a "Committee of Concerned Parents" harassing McGorvey with hate messages and hostile leaflets. Needless to say, Hedges has dark secrets of his own hidden away.
Among the other characters are the typically narrow-minded folks one finds in message movies: guys who live and die by football; mothers who have regimented routines for their children and who want to castrate the pedophile; and a mother-in-law from hell whom Brad's wife, getting suspicious of his behavior, brings in to live with them and follow Brad everywhere he goes. We've seen these bits before, but they're worthy of repetition.
I also liked most of director Fields' simple, straightforward storytelling manner. He eschews the current trendy style of quick edits, bizarre color pallettes, and oddball camera angles for a more old-fashioned method of point and shoot. On only one occasion does he indulge himself with a split screen. But I said "most." Unfortunately, he chooses to use an omniscient narrator (Will Lyman, uncredited) with a mellifluous voice-over to get us into the minds of the characters. This narrator sounds like one of those guys who narrates weighty documentaries on TV (and, in fact, Lyman has done any number of weighty documentaries for TV). At first, I thought the narration was so corny, it was a part of the joke, but the narration continues long into the film and long past the point of its being funny. Maybe Field really meant for us to take it seriously. If so, it was a mistake.
Anyway, I'm sure that Field wants us to see that the world is not black-and-white, good-or-bad, but that so-called "normal" people are quirky individuals after all. The best scene in this regard is Sarah's attendance at a neighborhood book-club meeting, where a group of women are discussing Flaubert's "Madame Bovary." It is both comic and dramatic, with the Flaubert character seeming to mirror Sarah's own dilemma. The book, Sarah tells the group, is about "the hunger for alternatives, and the refusal to accept a life of unhappiness." It's a good summing up of one of the movie's primary themes.
However, at the same time Field is building up good will in the audience, he is undermining his own characterizations and ideas. For instance, the movie is far too long (at well over two hours) to maintain its grip on the situation. Once it makes its points, which is early on, the rest is redundant. The movie is also much too talky. There are too many characters taking up too much time. I've already mentioned that its intentions are ambivalent, its main character too pretty, and its narration too peculiar. Moreover, the movie's intended shocking ending is disappointing and seems to belie the very essence of the story.
So, "Little Children" is definitely a movie of contrasts. Perhaps that is just what life is like, but the movie piles it on rather thick. "Little Children" is rated R for sex and nudity.
"Little Children" has a lot in common with "In the Bedroom" in terms of its serious human relationships, and it also borrows heavily from the Oscar-winning "American Beauty" in terms of its humor. It might seem a cheap shot for Field and his co-screenwriter Tom Perrotta (who based the screenplay on his own novel) to place their story in so obvious a setting as an all-white, middle-class, suburban village--the fictional East Wyndam, MA--since Hollywood has already satirized this segment of society so often, and since filmmakers seem to think that conservative, white-collar suburbanites make easy targets for ridicule (for good or for bad). Well, cheap shot or no, the satiric part of the story works fine. It's when the filmmakers try to change the tone of their satire to one of dead earnestness that the film begins to sound preachy.
Here's the thing: Everyone we meet in the movie is unhappy, everyone has a problem of some kind. The first main character is Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet), a thirty-something mother, unhappy in her marriage. She was an English major in college, which, according to the filmmakers, gives her an intellectual mind, a liberal attitude, and no useful skills. She longs for something more than taking care of a three-year-old daughter and worrying about her husband (Gregg Edelman) and his addiction to Internet porn sites. The other main character is Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson), a thirty-something housefather, unhappy as he struggles to pass the bar exam and unhappy in his marriage to a beautiful and successful psychologist (Jennifer Connelly). Brad's wife seems to him more interested in her work and their young son than in Brad. Naturally, Sarah and Brad meet one day and find a mutual attraction that soon blossoms into a full-blown affair.
This troubled-romance part of the story is realistic enough, while maintaining the aura of a satiric soap opera, except for one problem: The movie would have us believe that Winslet's character is a plain-Jane type, dull and unattractive, part of Brad's falling for her because she is so different from his more-glamorous wife. But Winslet is far too pretty to be effective in the role, so as an audience we have to use our imagination.
The supporting characters are either weirdos or stereotypes, both of which work well in the satiric parts of the story, if not so well in the realistic parts. Jackie Earle Haley has a standout role as a pedophile, Ronnie McGorvey, who has returned to the community to live with his mother (Phyllis Somerville) after being released from a two-year prison stretch for exposing himself to a minor. Haley pretty much steals the show, and I would rather have seen the whole movie built around his character than around the more-boring Sarah and Brad. Then there's Noah Emmerich as Larry Hedges, one of Brad's friends, an ex-cop who is the head of a "Committee of Concerned Parents" harassing McGorvey with hate messages and hostile leaflets. Needless to say, Hedges has dark secrets of his own hidden away.
Among the other characters are the typically narrow-minded folks one finds in message movies: guys who live and die by football; mothers who have regimented routines for their children and who want to castrate the pedophile; and a mother-in-law from hell whom Brad's wife, getting suspicious of his behavior, brings in to live with them and follow Brad everywhere he goes. We've seen these bits before, but they're worthy of repetition.
I also liked most of director Fields' simple, straightforward storytelling manner. He eschews the current trendy style of quick edits, bizarre color pallettes, and oddball camera angles for a more old-fashioned method of point and shoot. On only one occasion does he indulge himself with a split screen. But I said "most." Unfortunately, he chooses to use an omniscient narrator (Will Lyman, uncredited) with a mellifluous voice-over to get us into the minds of the characters. This narrator sounds like one of those guys who narrates weighty documentaries on TV (and, in fact, Lyman has done any number of weighty documentaries for TV). At first, I thought the narration was so corny, it was a part of the joke, but the narration continues long into the film and long past the point of its being funny. Maybe Field really meant for us to take it seriously. If so, it was a mistake.
Anyway, I'm sure that Field wants us to see that the world is not black-and-white, good-or-bad, but that so-called "normal" people are quirky individuals after all. The best scene in this regard is Sarah's attendance at a neighborhood book-club meeting, where a group of women are discussing Flaubert's "Madame Bovary." It is both comic and dramatic, with the Flaubert character seeming to mirror Sarah's own dilemma. The book, Sarah tells the group, is about "the hunger for alternatives, and the refusal to accept a life of unhappiness." It's a good summing up of one of the movie's primary themes.
However, at the same time Field is building up good will in the audience, he is undermining his own characterizations and ideas. For instance, the movie is far too long (at well over two hours) to maintain its grip on the situation. Once it makes its points, which is early on, the rest is redundant. The movie is also much too talky. There are too many characters taking up too much time. I've already mentioned that its intentions are ambivalent, its main character too pretty, and its narration too peculiar. Moreover, the movie's intended shocking ending is disappointing and seems to belie the very essence of the story.
So, "Little Children" is definitely a movie of contrasts. Perhaps that is just what life is like, but the movie piles it on rather thick. "Little Children" is rated R for sex and nudity.
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