Little Children (2006)

I had the pleasure of seeing the premiere of "Little Children" at Telluride. The incomprable Mr.Feild hid behind the curtain near the concession at the back of the Nugget Theater wringing his hands, looking a wee bit nauseous. It was all very endearing. The film is superb. Amongst the American fare it tops my list of films fromTelluride, next to the incomprable 'Day Night Day Night' directed by Julia Loktev.

For me, it was all about Jackie Earle Haley. Haley sneaks onto the screen 45 minutes into the narrative bursting the happy bubble of familiar ups and downs of married with children life. The result unnerving edgy tension that could be cut with a knife. Haley's performance is vulnerable, awkward and possibly the strongest male role to light up the screen this year. Haley deserves accolades, praise and loads of attention. He's been a favorite darling of mine for ages...something I had the good fortune of recounting to Feild after the screening.

Feild provides many questions and very few answers. Haley's character may have been released from jail for indecent exposure to a minor, yet Feild does a delicate balancing act without faltering on the side of "good guy/ bad guy". This is NOT a film about pedophiles. This is a film about faults, judgments, weaknesses that consume, chew one up and spits you out again. And in the end the entire paradigm of suburban life has been twisted, shaken, pushed and pulled.

There is tragedy, openness, shifts, that do not add up to ultimate conclusions. This complex tale weaves passion, disillusionment, love, lust, desire, ambivalence. But most importantly, the tender web of Mother-Child relations, WITHOUT ever vilifying Mother. Feild breaks from this poisonous, obsessive, castrating, oedipal mother-subject paradigm and addresses the people who float in and out of crisis above and beyond being tied to their social roles and traditional moral codes.

Winslet encapsulates the awkward intellectual mom, who loves her daughter, but has very very human ambivalence towards this 24/7 duty of unconditional love/acceptance and never ending giving. Finally, she decides to give something back to herself, by playing out a torrid love affair with the Prom King (Patrick Wilson) another character ripe with flaws and exudes humanness.

This should win many many many accolades for 2006, it's a rare stand out. A powerful disturbingly familiar tale played out eloquently, and held at benign distance via the brilliant use of odd narration. It's a strange convention, but Feild masters this as he skewers and satirizes and describes it's subjects with authority. The narration was pleasantly reminiscent of "Fishing with John", often obvious, but nicely pushing the plot along with often more than a hint of humor. The serious tone of the narrator serves to punctuate the utter ridiculous paradox of the banalities of being 'married with children' and having a flashy adventurous love affair in and around the locations of everyday stay at home summer existence; the park, the pool, the evening football game.

The Affair never reveals itself as the be-all-and-end-all, answer to disillusionment and sadness of suburban middle class marriage. Nor, the cause-effect that sets the plot in motion. Even more satisfyingly, the affair does not legitimate the happy normative narrative ending.

Fmovies: The acclaimed director of "In the Bedroom" brings a brand new type of adulterous love tale. Todd Field co-adapts Tom Perrotta's novel and never leaves the source material unattended. The film is multi-layered with subtle undertones and illustrious questions wrapped into a parable of two people Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson) and Sarah Pierce, (Kate Winslet) individuals that feel so disenchanted with existence that they find "comfort" in one another. Brad is married to Kathy, (Jennifer Connelly) a beautiful Documentary film maker that pushes her husband to pass the Bar Exam that he's successfully failed twice. She sends him on nightly trips to the library to study where Brad often gets sidetracked into watching a couple of young skaters, skate around. Sarah is working on her dissertation and retires to the playground everyday with her daughter Lucy, to reminisce with the women of the neighborhood. Sarah is married to Richard, an awkward man with underlying motives and fantasies. Although his vanishing in the film is as awkward as he is.

Upon talking about raising children and busy schedules, the women of the neighborhood are delighted with the return of Brad a.k.a. "The Prom King," who indulges their erotic fantasies. The attraction between Sarah and Brad isn't as obvious from the beginning but a small bet will change that. The two acquire at first, a friendship in the interest of simple companionship, a get away from their spouses, where they could feel support. After the sexual tension is ignited, it remains there through trips to the park, pool and Sarah's infamous laundry room.

Todd Field's brutal honesty of adulthood in Suburbia is strikingly palpable and he never leaves the mind of the characters. Unfortunately Field and Perrotta often bring many questions about morality and judgment to the table and leave the subjects murky. The adaptation is great but there are so many points and features to make in this narrative, the two writers couldn't tackle each task. The dialogue is always engaging and inviting for the viewer; I always felt the need to listen to every word.

The performances for the most part are remarkable. Patrick Wilson's "Brad" is extremely character-flawed. His immaturity is evident in every scene and Wilson does an impressive job of portraying that. Brad is stuck in a world, a world somewhere in between high school graduation and yesterday's pasta dinner. His identity seeking is never exposed until the meeting of Sarah and his immaturity is never more manifested until the finale. The underdeveloped character of Kathy is sometimes bothersome but with the flow of the story it fits the aura of the picture. Jennifer Connelly does well with her minimal screen time but it isn't the marvel of the film that stands out like other low-screen time performances have been in the past. Also, the great Noah Emmerich and Phyllis Somerville are great in their respective roles.

The two standouts lay in the unknown comeback of Jackie Earle Haley, who plays Ronald McGovern, a recently released pedophile searching for a new beginning in a town unkind to the power of forgiveness and profound origination. In Haley, the viewer finds the most sympathy of all the players and this viewer was delighted to find it. In no way are people accepting of pedophilia, but we can start to sympathize with anyone who yearns for the restart of any kind and becomes bewildered and astray in the process. Haley's "Ronnie" is so tortured i

Relationship drama is on the menu and Todd Field is the waiter, with expert skill and neat presentation. 'Little Children' zooms in on suburbia, navigating the world of desperate housewives and husbands. The dish proves a pleasant diversion, with crisp performances and a tasty centre.

So tasty, in fact, that Little Children is one of the most interesting films of recent years. It is far from the greatest, and is not devoid of faults, but a genuine evocation of interest should be attributed to Field's story. Every character unflinchingly demands our attention. We want to know more about precisely everyone in the community. In the front row for fascination sits Ronnie, the resident child molestor, who pends between likable and freak. He is the overriding nominator for 'Little Children' – and his presence greatly upsets the parents.

Yet most salience is given to Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson as Sarah and Pierce – two lonely, bored and desperate housespouses who, in the midst of having nothing to do, innocently begin an extramarital affair with each other. Through calm narration, the film introduces Sarah as an anthropologist and remarks how she is different from the contingent of housemoms. However it becomes apparent that the director is the anthropologist and not Sarah. Indeed Field studies human relationships accordingly, interweaving loneliness, desperation, jealousy, lust and betrayal. Sarah, in fact, loses her 'objective' stance and melts in with the rest as she indulges in her passion with Brad.

It needs to be said that 'Little Children' often tips over into comedy and it is this refreshing edge that bumps it up to 8/10 on my scale. It treats serious subjects, such as pedophilia, infidelity and loneliness – but it does so with the spark in the eye. A consistent cloud of laughter seemed to hover in the air of my theatre at the Stockholm Film Festival and Kate Winslet was undoubtedly the catalyst. She gives a fine performance with excellent emotional transparency, layered skill and above all with an inherent funny bone that translates to a goofy woman. The humour is surprisingly in-tune even with the other characters with all their quirks and afflictions, such as child-molestation and online pornography.

Toward the end, 'Little Children' patiently crafts a sense of impending doom that deserves much credit. Nevertheless, the ending isn't the best imaginable. The film could benefit from being slightly shorter. Lastly the use of cute kids as tearjerkers is a disappointing cheap-shot used a little too often, and seems mostly a tiresome American phenomenon. Yet as a whole entity Little Children is a very interesting film that makes the best possible use of characters, relationships and suburban drama. Throw in a few exceptionally neat steadicam shots – Scorsese-style – and the experience is complete.

8 out of 10

Little Children fmovies. Just remarkable, because it goes in split second from laughter to deep tragic shock without affecting the credibility of the story, back and forth.

Every actor has been brilliantly directed and it is a gallery of portrays, not just two actors leading the story. I found myself so affected by it because of the sheer unpredictable storyline going to predictable then going back to the unknown.

You will watch how people whirl themselves into their own actions and then try to find a way out of these consequences. Then they free themselves at times, to trap themselves next. Absolutely brilliant, with an array of emotions succeeding to one another.

Visually sumptuous. People stayed in the theater and talked about it.

Looking back, you feel afterward how much love and dedication from director, crew and actors went into it. Just a stunning, beautiful movie.

Director Todd Field satirizes western society and exposes our fundamental flaw as a society. We are a country of self-righteous hypocrites who band together to crush evil wherever it may be found but overlook our own weaknesses.

The story on one level is exceedingly banal: it shifts from scene to scene exposing the triviality of day to day life. Yet there is that haunting sound of an approaching train. Are we witnessing a train wreck? The brilliant use of a narrator lulls us into the belief that this is just a children's story and nothing bad will happen. Yet our eyes are glued to the screen as we await the crash.

Jackie Earle Haley as Ronnie exposes everything that is wrong with our modern world and everything that is right about character acting. He gives a stand out performance definitely worthy of Oscar consideration. The character represents an unknown evil in our community, one that must be sought out and destroyed. His character at times is sympathetic, even lovable and other other times hideous and menacing.

But who is more detestable? Is it Ronnie or is it those infinitely boring (but beautiful) adulterers, Sarah (Kate Winslet) or Brad (Patrick Wilson)? Is it up to us to judge? If we do, are we not being like the suburban community that is the metaphor for our society? In that way, Director Todd Fields includes us in the movie whether we know it or not. This is a wonderful (train) ride that will keep us talking for days. It is one of this year's great movies.

In the suburbs, the boredom Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet) lives a dull marriage without love with her selfish husband Richard Pierce (Gregg Edelman), who is successful in his career but with awful sexual habits. She spends the mornings with her daughter Lucy (Sadie Goldstein) in the playground observing the behavior of the suburban mothers with their children. When Sarah sees the frisson caused by the handsome "househusband" Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson) in the other women, she decides to talk to him. Brad tells her that he has failed twice in the Bar exams for lawyer and he is financially supported by his wife Kathy (Jennifer Connelly), who is a documentary filmmaker. He omits that Kathy is a woman that gives all her attention to their son Aaron (Ty Simpkins), refusing to have sex with him. Sarah feels trapped in her unhappy life and has an affair with Brad, who is the opposite of Richard, in the afternoons. Meanwhile, the pervert Ronnie J. McGorvey (Jackie Earle Haley), who was in prison for indecent exposure, returns to his mother's house and feels the prejudice of his community against his presence, especially from the retired policeman Larry Hedges (Noah Emmerich) that is trying to force Ronnie to move away from their neighborhood.

"Little Children" is an extremely well-acted movie that uses a modern adaptation of Madame Bovary to the present days in the American suburbs. The boredom condition of Emma Bovary and Sarah Pierce are very similar, both fell trapped in an unhappy marriage, and have love affairs to escape from their boredom. This movie really deserved the nomination to the Oscar in the categories of Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, with Jackie Earle Haley having a top-notch performance in the role of a deranged sick man; Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role to the stunning Kate Winslet, one my favorite and best actress ever – my only remark is that, at least for my eyes and taste, she is a charming and beautiful woman, and apparently Sarah Pierce is a plain woman; and Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay, to Todd Field and Tom Perrotta that were able to perfectly develop a complex story with entwined lives of many characters in an adequate pace and eroticism. In the end, "Little Children" is one of those unforgettable and highly recommended movies. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Pecados Íntimos" ("Intimate Sins")