Little Children
Written by Todd Field & Tom Perrotta
Directed by Todd Field
New Line Cinema
2006
Rating:


Movies about adultery, like sex comedies, feign rebellion and solemnity about the subject only to become distracted by other external elements and ultimately maintain the status quo. "A Place in the Sun," "Match Point" and "Unfaithful," for instance, all deal with infidelity in a mature, thoughtful manner before turning into thrillers of varying degrees of competence. In recent memory only the exquisite "We Don't Live Here Anymore" examines adultery with moral complexity from beginning to end, and even that film turns into "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" (for reasons that are psychologically sound in the superb characterizations) while maintaining a traditional family structure.

"Little Children" joins "A Place in the Sun" and its offspring in the cinematic tradition of failing to fully explore adultery. Based on the novel by "Election" author Tom Perrotta (who co-wrote the script with Field), "Little Children" is at least a third of a good movie, tellingly soaring when the film deals in the ambiguities of infidelity.

Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet) and Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson) meet-cute while taking their children to the park. Neither of them is happily married: Sarah, an English Literature major who resents being reduced to a mother and housewife, has recently caught her husband Richard (Gregg Edelman) kinkily involved in a pseudo-affair with a Web mistress he frequently masturbates to; Richard is a stay-at-home dad who disappoints his political documentarian wife Kathy (Jennifer Connelly) because he can't pass the bar exam. Sarah and Brad kiss for the first time as a dare to enrage the nosy housewives at the playground. But neither of them can forget that kiss and they soon use their children as smokescreens to have an affair.

Field and cinematographer Antonio Calvache capture Sarah and Brad's fleeting love affair with elegance, bringing the same kind of subtle beauty to "Little Children" as they did in Field's powerful debut "In the Bedroom." An actor who appeared in Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut" and the short-lived, beloved ABC drama "Once & Again," Field wrought surprisingly wonderful work from his actors in his debut. Here Winslet is as remarkable as always, delicately depicting her character's resentment and desperation. Yet Winslet is far too beautiful for her role: Sarah is talked about as a dowdy woman who Brad would never leave his cold, hot wife for, something that's not believable given Winslet's irrepressible radiance. Meanwhile Wilson's Brad is a hollow man hollowly depicted and Connelly, in a barely existent role, has no chance to flesh out her thinly conceived character.

Besides being about adultery, "Little Children" is also a satire of suburban life and a thriller about the threat of a recently released pedophile. Both aspects transform "Little Children" from a competent domestic drama into an insulting catastrophe.

Perrotta has proved himself to be an adept satirist with "Election" and 2007's "Abstinence Teacher." The suburbs prove to be too hard of a target for Perrotta, however, most likely because it's so easy. Instead of examining the spiritual emptiness of life like the "Chekhov of the suburbs" John Cheever, Perrotta condescendingly portrays the housewives of his Massachusetts hamlet as cardigan-wearing harpies. The painful, unnecessary narration by Will Lyman — besides expressing thoughts and emotions that should be subtext instead of text — pointedly turns the women into an anthropological study to reward urban dwellers who wish to scoff at those foolish enough not to live in a city.

Far worse is the reactionary subplot about pedophile Ronald James McGorvey (former "Bad News Bear" Jackie Earle Haley). In many respects McGorvey is meant to be the film's raison d'κtre. The focus of the town, especially disgraced police officer Larry Hedges (Noah Emmerich), on McGorvey displays how quick people are to vilify one flawed man while indulging in their own faults. After all, the bigger threat to the Pierce and Adamson children are their respective inattentive parents and the threat of a collapsing family unit. Yet this smart metaphor doesn't work. Haley and the filmmakers portray McGorvey in the most sinister manner possible, turning him into a howling Nosferatu and momma's boy who masturbates in front of a suicidal woman on the first date. Field and Perrotta can't even keep the facts straight about him: early in the film it's reported that McGorvey will be sent back to prison if he comes within 100 yards of a playground or other facility where children frequent, yet he's frequently caught at playgrounds and even taken away by the police from a pool. The foolish housewives lament there's nothing they can do about it, even though the film says this is reason enough for him to go to jail.

This carelessness is indicative of a film that's too eager to wallow in hyperbole rather than realism, a movie that cares less about genuine emotion than it does about pandering to an audience of "To Catch a Predator" fans and elitist urbanites.

Posted Friday, January 5, 2007

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