Little Children
 | Directed by Todd Field Starring: Kate Winslet, Jennifer Connelly, Patrick Wilson, Gregg Edelman, Sadie Goldstein New Line Home Video, 2006, DVD Customer Rating: 151 reviews Recommend |
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- Kate Winslet, Jennifer Connelly and Patrick Wilson star in the Academy Award nominated film Little Children, the latest work from Oscar-nominated writer/director Todd Field. Based on the novel by Tom Perrotta, Little Children centers on a handful of middle-class suburban parents whose lives unravel in the wake of an adulterous affair.Running Time: 137 min. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA
Kate Winslet, Jennifer Connelly and Patrick Wilson star in the Academy Award nominated film Little Children, the latest work from Oscar-nominated writer/director Todd Field. Based on the novel by Tom Perrotta, Little Children centers on a handful of middle-class suburban parents whose lives unravel in the wake of an adulterous affair.
Kate Winslet operates at a galaxy-class level in Little Children, Todd Field's gratifyingly grown-up look at unhappy suburbia. Winslet is magnificent, in an Oscar-nominated performance, as a stroller-pushing mom who becomes attracted to a passive househusband (Patrick Wilson). Their slow-burning infidelity (Field wisely allows time to pass in this unhurried film) is contrasted with a more sensational subplot, about a convicted pedophile (Jackie Earle Haley, also Oscar nominated) returning to the neighborhood to live with his mother (Phyllis Somerville). Field, who brought his civilized approach to In the Bedroom, uses a deliberately literary style here, including a device with a narrator who sounds as though he's sitting at our side as he reads from Tom Perotta's novel. (The narrator is a superb touch — his cultivated voice distances us from the sloppy passions of the characters.) The film's biggest miscalculation is a self-appointed neighborhood vigilante (Noah Emmerich) determined to make life miserable for the pedophile. But Wilson is appropriately nebulous, Jennifer Connelly solid as his wife, and Haley (child star of the Bad News Bears movies), as the creepy, childlike molester, found himself rediscovered after a long career layoff. There's decent acting here, but Winslet is in a zone of her own, with so much emotional honesty and subtlety of expression that she transforms a good movie into a must-see. — Robert Horton
Title: Little Children
Sales Rank: 7383 in DVD
Actor: Kate Winslet, Jennifer Connelly, Patrick Wilson, Gregg Edelman, Sadie Goldstein
Director: Todd Field
Studio: New Line Home Video, 2007-05-01, Theatrical Release: 2006-11-03
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC, Acpect Ratio 2.35:1
Languages: English (Original Language), Spanish (Original Language)
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Region Code: 1
Running Time: 130 minutes
Item Dimensions: 0.2 pounds
Package Dimensions: 7.1 x 5.42 x 0.58 inches, 0.18 pounds
- Garbage!
- This movie, despite some good acting, chiefly glorifies adultry and the emptiness of marriage--it goes nowhere and left me totally unsatisfied. It is an unfocused story--if you want to call it that--which I found highly contrived and, for the most part, often unbelievable and quite predictable. Don't waste your money on this. One of the worst movies I've ever seen! More reviews
- Paraphilia NOS
- Yippeee... I wanted to watch this film after reading positive reviews galore, in addition to the "controversial subject matter". What is seen is a barrage of clichés disguised by a different eggshell. Dissatisfied middle-class suburbanites looking for a way out of their self-imposed cage. The only ways out are to regress to primitive instincts, as wanting to be a skateboard-riding teenager or simply reinventing primordial lust. Now, the reasoning… More reviews
- Wacky Ending to Adult Situations -
- The movie is definitely not for young children, but about characters and crisis around them, as they grow and play in a straight-laced American suburb. A voice narrates "Little Children" the movie off and on. Some scenes the narration is a plus, and others you feel talked down to. However, by performances and plot, the movie grabs you.… More reviews
- Field's 2nd Masterpiece.
- Personally, I found this to be the best American film of 2006. Mr. Field has crafted his 2nd Masterpiece. A brilliant expose of postmodern irresponsibility & suburbanite dysfunction.
In my mind, Field is one of the more interesting & mature American writer / director's working today, I'm excited to see what he chooses tackles next. There is something about his narratives that are both… More reviews
- It's the hunger, the hunger for an alternative, refusal to accept a life of unhappiness.
- Tom Perrotta novel Little Children has been adapted for screen. Tom Fields takes to the directors chair for this black comedy which brings us viewers into a world of suburban secrets, sexual paranoia and midlife crisis where damaged self-esteem hangs by a thread and acts of desperation begins to unfold. While the films does provide laughs there are… More reviews
