Built from a perfect story-telling collaboration.
Little Children (2006)
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Reviews Counted:152
Fresh:121
Rotten:31
Average Rating:7.4/10
Consensus: Little Children takes a penetrating look at suburbia and its flawed individuals with an unflinching yet humane eye.
Rated: 15 [See Full Rating] for strong sexuality and nudity, language and some disturbing content.
Runtime: 2 hrs 17 mins
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:03-11-2006
Synopsis: Actor-turned-director Todd Field follows up his Oscar-nominated drama, IN THE BEDROOM, with this ambitious adaptation of Tom Perrotta's celebrated novel. Set in the imploding minefields of modern... Actor-turned-director Todd Field follows up his Oscar-nominated drama, IN THE BEDROOM, with this ambitious adaptation of Tom Perrotta's celebrated novel. Set in the imploding minefields of modern suburbia, LITTLE CHILDREN follows several inhabitants of a small American town as they fumble their way through adulthood. Numb-to-life housewife and mother Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet) finds an outlet for her yearning in gorgeous househusband Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson), who is crippled with insecurity over the fact that his perfect wife, Kathy (Jennifer Connelly), is the family breadwinner. When Sarah and Brad meet at the local playground one afternoon, a passionate affair is sparked. In a further attempt to reclaim his youthful fire, Brad joins a night football league with Larry Hedges (Noah Emmerich), a former cop who has begun to harass a convicted sex offender, Ronnie J. McGorvey (Jackie Earle Haley). These troubled lives eventually collide, causing each individual to take full responsibility for their not-so-responsible actions. Adapted for the screen by Field and Perrotta and artfully photographed by Antonio Calvache, LITTLE CHILDREN is a bitingly funny, and nakedly honest, critique of middle class dysfunction. Though the cast is universally superb, it is former child actor Haley (THE BAD NEWS BEARS, BREAKING AWAY) who steals the show. After only two features, Field proves that he is a truly gifted storyteller. This film was included in the 44th New York Film Festival organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. [More]
Starring: Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Gregg Edelman, Sadie Goldstein
Starring: Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Gregg Edelman, Sadie Goldstein, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley, Jane Adams, Phyllis Somerville, Sarah Buxton
Director: Todd Field
Director: Todd Field
Producer: Albert Berger
Composer: Thomas Newman
Studio: New Line Cinema
Reviews for Little Children
Auteur Todd Field and co-writer Tom Perrotta have created a group of some of the most unsympathetic characters to ever blight movie screen.
Although thought-provoking and full of outstanding performances, Little Children still can't escape a little of the same ambivalence that traps its suburban characters.
There's something about the frustrations of middle class citizens trapped in suburbia that seems both profound and profoundly trivial, and that's reflected in the tone.
This is a story that cuts through lost youth, actual youth and youth suspended through psychosexual disorders that mentally draw such people to their own kind.
An engaging tale of middle-class suburbia, with its attendant fears, yearnings and rushes to judgment.
One of the few films I can think of that examines the baffling combination of smugness, self-abnegation, ceremonial deference and status anxiety that characterizes middle-class Gen X parenting, and find sheer, white-knuckled terror at its core.
There's enough humanity exhibited in Little Children to forgive its occasional submission to wanton excess.
Although some of the actors are terrific, especially Winslet, Haley, Adams, and Phyllis Somerville as Ronald's loving mother, their work is undercut by the film's attitude of smirky superiority toward its characters. The superiority is unearned.
It's an odd film, with a wryly intrusive, deep-voiced narrator who appears to be standing just behind the screen reading excerpts from the novel.
Little Children [is] a jolting, artfully made drama set in and around a suburban playground somewhere between American Beauty and In the Bedroom on America's psychic highay...
If this is an example of suburban living, I'll take NY. A riveting film.
The main story deals with Sarah and Brad, but the other characters are given existences of their own, which is rare in motion pictures, and Little Children is richer for it.
may not be the great follow-up we wanted after In the Bedroom, but it still verifies that the skill he showed there is no fluke
Wilson's overgrown adolescent, Winslet's bored, discontented wife and Haley's creepy, self-loathing sex offender are complex, deeply flawed characters -- they're the 'little children.'
As Little Children skitters along, it gathers weight, like a snowball, until it finally knocks you cold.
Magnetic, a movie that manages to be artistic and entertaining all at once.
Little Children is bursting with fantastic performances, filled with great and often hilarious dialogue, structured with layer upon layer of resonant meaning and shot with gorgeous, masterful camerawork. The film works on every single level.
Seems terribly confused about whether it wants to be literary drama or out-and-out satire.
Latest News for Little Children
July 23, 2007:
Jackie Earle Haley, More Confirmed for Watchmen Cast
Expect to see a whole lot of "Watchmen" updates over the next several months. And here's one: Jackie Earle Haley, Matthew Goode, and Malin Akerman have signed deals to appear in... More...
June 18, 2007:
Patrick Wilson (Pretty Much) Confirmed for "Watchmen"
He did great work in both "Hard Candy" and "Little Children," so now it might be time for Patrick Wilson's shot at the comic book material. More...
January 30, 2007:
SAG Award Winners Revealed, Oscar Predicting Hits Full Steam
Known as a big predictor of what'll go down Oscar night, the Screen Actors Guild Awards ceremony took place last Sunday to a rapturous Hollywood crowd without a hitch (or... More...
January 23, 2007:
Oscar Nominations Announced: "Little Miss Sunshine," "Dreamgirls," "Borat" Deemed Worthy
The expected heavy hitters made the grade -- Scorsese, Whitaker, "Dreamgirls" -- but there were a handful of surprises...let's just say, if you thought you'd never... More...
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