Little Children (2006)
Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet), a bored stay-at-home mom has an affair with Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson), while convicted sex-offender Ronnie (Jackie Early Haley) has difficulty adjusting to life outside of prison.
The first hour of Todd Field’s sophomore feature-length film was spellbinding, but once Sarah and Brad gave in to their lust, the movie became a little too conventional, limping towards its inevitable semi-tragic and pointless conclusion.
I loved the character of Sarah at the beginning of the film and would have preferred to hear her sharp inner monologue commentary about the horde of stay-at home mothers she spends her days with rather than watch the rest of the film. The energy of this portion of the film reminded me of the first half of Amelie (2001).
Jennifer Connelly doesn’t do much as Kathy, Brad’s loving but overzealous wife, and while she’s an attractive woman, the repeated assertion Brad would be foolish to leave her to be with the less attractive Sarah seems ridiculous.
Jackie Early Haley does a decent job as Ronnie McGorvey, but the film lets him down. I thought it was going to humanize his inability to deal with his predilections. However, when Ronnie takes a blind date to a children’s park and masturbates while looking at a swing set, the film loses any chance to humanize him.
The film’s depiction of the incremental steps which led to Sarah’s husband’s obsession with pornography is an interesting insight into the process by which addiction takes hold.
Todd Field’s first feature-length film In the Bedroom (2001) was a masterful, quiet, understated movie. Perhaps he was buoyed by success and decided to push himself in his next feature. The first hour is excellent, but the film is derailed by its own ambition. Not content to just be a movie; it desperately wants to be a movie with something profound to say. He pushed too far.