3/5 Wacky Ending to Adult Situations -
  by Loyd E. Eskildson (Phoenix, AZ.)
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.

"Little Children" shines light on hypocrisy in everyday suburbia lives. It shows our tendencies to feel superior to the people we label as guilty of sins. Oftentimes we are guilty of sins of different sorts. There are four characters to watch - a wife who cheats on her husband, a husband who cheats on his wife, a pedophile living with his mother, a messed up cop. They are all interesting characters who do things out of public view, but know their sins as they talk of others.

What is intriguing is that we get to observe the two-faced characters, who also observe each other. There are children playing throughout - on the playground, at home, and in the swimming pool. They see and interact as the adults and parents go in and out of affairs. The main affair is between Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet) who has an affair with a stay at home dad, Brad (Patrick Wilson). They progress in a relationship you think will end with them getting divorced and moving on - however a wacky ending will make you wonder if this was the same couple at the beginnign of the movie.

Along with the adult affairs, there is a story about the neighborhood's child molester. His name is Ronnie played superbly by Jackie Earl Haley. Ronnie is a mother's boy and shielded and cared for by her when he comes home from prison. Somehow he becomes forgivable as her love for him never fades. She is optimistic about his future.. He is hated by the neighbors who were shown on the news saying they did not want him in their neighborhood. We soon realize that he is not the only one who has hurt a child.

Overall is is good drama highlighting lies we tell ourselves to make things right. The ending is a surprise - not expected - but for me it defied logic.


5/5 Field's 2nd Masterpiece.
  by William R. Andrews (Los Angeles, California, USA)
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 familiar and unsettling, and as with all great dramatic films his stay with you long after the viewing experience.


3/5 It's the hunger, the hunger for an alternative, refusal to accept a life of unhappiness.
  by Andrea Bowhill (England)
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 also plenty of shocks with serious factors while the grown-ups try to save their own lives and sense of worth, protection for their own young children will never fail them, as an even bigger fear hangs over a whole community a sex offender is in their mists.

A narrator talks us through the bigger picture letting us know the characters deeper thoughts and feelings and shifting viewpoints. (Kate Winslet) plays Sarah a women with a small daughter, her husband is a marketing executive and also a secret enthusiast of internet porn. Sarah had felt for sometime disenchanted with everything, her life, husband and the uptight small minded moms at the towns playground, she'd fallen into just marking time. Sarah deliberately strikes up a flirtatious friendship with Brad (Patrick Wilson) a stay at home dad known by the other playground moms as Prom King.

Brad is caught up in his own failures of life, hoping to become a lawyer but had so far failed his bar exam twice. His beautiful wife (Jennifer Connelly) had her own career success and he feels inferior just living in her shadow. Uncertain of what he wants Brad keeps his day busy, looking after their young son, he also joins the campaign against the local pedophile. Brad and Sarah friendship has profound disorientation for both; yet it's also their salvation, a curiosity, a fresh excitement, needing each others company just to feel alive!

Strange mix of love and hate going on in this film, the title, Little Children doesn't just refer to the young, instead applies to all ages. All characters show there childlike vulnerability. The pedophile Ronald McGorvey (Jackie Haley) being the prime example portraying him in this film as childlike and living with his mother, trying to bring a sympathetic side to a much-hated character, which was always going to be a tall order for any actor to pull off. But Jackie Haley does put in a powerful performance quite a few haunting scenes like when his lowering himself into the children's shallows of a packed pool with mask and flippers in tow causing complete panic and another scene where his mother sets him up on a dinner date, the results are just halloweeny; creepy and an excruciating embarrassment for all.

Summing up : Great Casting; all performances were strong Kate Winslet marvelous performance in this beautiful shot film. It ticks over nicely scene by scene, the narrator voice for me was the most annoying part, I found it far too monotone. overall It's a film about private addictions, secrecy and denials; enjoyable dark comedy, I'd give it three and a half stars; worth watching.

Andrea Bowhill

3/5 Odd, intriguing and unpleasant...
  by nicjaytee (London)
There's something very odd about "Little Children": it grabs your attention, the acting's good (in the case of Kate Winslet & Jackie Earle Haley, both nominated for Oscars as a result of their performances, superb), the story's intriguing, and what happens to the characters is at times quite thought-provoking, but there's something eerie and very uncomfortable about it all that's difficult to put your finger on... until you think about what you've seen.

Which is? Well, when you reflect on it, none of the people are actually believable and much of what happens to them is also pretty unbelievable. So much so, that it's as though the town's been populated by zombies who conduct their lives in an extremely detached, often bizarrely odd way. For example, a married man and a married woman lie together around the town's packed public swimming pool, day after day, and nobody notices or draws conclusions? A man on his way to elope with his lover gets waylaid during possibly the greatest decision in his life into trying a bit of highly dangerous skateboarding with a group of teenagers? A woman plays with her small daughter in a lonely park at night when there's a known paedophile operating in the area? Come on...

Certainly, as a "moving" love story or a critique of small town America it fails because the characters and events involved are just not believable enough. But that's not what makes it such uncomfortable viewing. No, what makes it so is its really quite nasty sub-story of paedophilia - not a subject that sits comfortably in any film and one that's actually handled very badly here. A known paedophile visits the children's local swimming pool in full snorkelling gear without anyone noticing that there's something blatantly odd going on until he's been in the water for some time? An ex-policeman ruthlessly and publicly persecutes this paedophile to the point of self-castration and then atones for his actions by "lovingly" carrying him to hospital? These aren't only equally unbelievable events but actually quite unacceptable viewing particularly when, like several other similarly bizarre or over-the-top scenes in the film, they seem to be in there primarily for dramatic or comic effect.

Excellent acting and clever direction make "Little Children" worth seeing but it's implausible and at times very unpleasant storyline coupled with its woeful lack of characterisation end up making it something you want to go through twice. If you're looking for a genuinely believable, deeply moving story of frustrated small town romance then "Revolutionary Road" is a far better option.

1/5 Both shallow and overwrought
  by Karen Sampson Hudson (Reno, NV United States)
Kate Winslet's performance is nuanced and well done, but it's wasted in this dark, ill-conceived mess of a movie. The cloying tone of the male narrator reminds one of the female narrator of that waste-of-time tv series set on Wisteria Lane, another suburban enclave.

This production manages to be shallow, annoying, and overwrought to the point of often seeming comic, although the sequence of events grows increasingly violent. This director desperately needs to find some better, less cliched ideas to make a plot worthy of watching. A woman bored in suburbia? A man feeling emasculated by a capable wife who is the family breadwinner? A cop with "post-traumatic stress syndrome"? The movie strikes one as a paint-by-number creation, and an extremely sloppy one, at that. It ranks as the worst film I have seen in years.