Some brief thoughts for now:

- Narration was brilliant. Some of the best, most fitting narration I've seen in a while.
- The dinner scene with the 2 married couples: tension was superb. The fork dropping thing: loved it.
- The book club scene: great, great, great.
- So much more awesome stuff, but don't have the time right now.
- Overall, wonderful! Possibly the best film of the year for me.

Peace,
Mike.

Kevin Smith listed this as one of the best of 2006. He made a good point, though, in saying that had this been released 5 or 10 years ago (basically pre-American Beauty and the subsequent onslaught of suburban dysfunction) under the Miramax label, it would be winning Best Picture.

Which I think is a good point.

I think it's a really good movie. I just think the material has, more or less, been covered already.

Well, it was a book first.

I've read the novel, but does anyone know when it was published?

Amazon says 2005, so...

But the synopsis there says something interesting about the book: Perrotta wrote Sarah as bisexual. Which was obviously left out of the film.

How did that play into the book?

Oh, right, yeah. There's a whole part in the book about Sarah exploring her sexuality in college.

I watched it this afternoon. I found the film to be very disturbing, for the obvious reason, right, involving the pedophile. The scene between him and the marvelous Jane Adams in the car is so profoundly disturbing. I mean, him masturbating while looking at the playground. Imagine being that woman at that moment? It is SO disturbing.

The acting is good, I guess, the narration not irritable, the atmosphere is fantastic, the three ladies are trite as characters and too cartoon-like (maybe that's the intention), the reference to the Iraq War is laughably forced, etc. Sarah is a selfish idiot, until almost the end, and Brad is wholly juvenile. The title, to me at least, refers to the grown up characters, not to the actual kids. Brad refuses to grow up, I don't think Sarah is all that grown up either, and Ronnie at the end becomes a grotesque baby. His castration is almost a symbolic reversion back to prepubescent childhood, and we even get so him in in his soiled underwear! Aside from the children, the only character I think deserves our sympathy is Ronnie's mother. Poor woman. As for Ronnie, he is sick. It's unfortunate, and yes, it's too bad that he has this disease, but he is a sick sick man, as that car scene shows. Also, curious about why he goes to the pool, when there are posters of him all over the place, when he knows that he will be detected, since it's impossible, given that his pic is everywhere and even on TV, that people won't recognize him? Because he, of course, can't help himself. He needs to see those kids.

Since almost no one who will watch this film will have read Madame Bovary, let me bring out one parallel: Sarah is essentially Madame Bovary; a bored housewife who strikes up affairs with two men, and kills herself, yes, fine we're told all that. BUT, it's not made clear that Madame Bovary, throughout the book, almost completely ignores her young daughter, pushes her to the side because she is too concerned with herself. When she commits suicide, her husband soon dies afterwards, and their oung girl is sent to an orphanage, to lead a miserably lonely life. When Sarah hugs her daughter and says I'm sorry at the end, that's what she's thinking of, of how unfair the affair has been to her young daughter (note when Sarah and Brad leave for the weekend, the young girl doesnt want her mom to go; Sarah picks Brad over the kid).

I think the film is well made and all; I'm glad that Sarah is not as beautiful as Brad's wife (though I found Winslet to be still hot, heh), because it gives occasion to that great scene in the car when Sarah cries. So priceless. I love Kate Winslet


Having said that, I find the film lacking. The addition of the pedophile as part of the plot makes the whole thing disturbing (let's not talk about Sarah's husband; that aspect of the film is unfortunately- fortunately?- crass and pathetic), but it doesn't make the film coherent. The closest thing I can compare it to is a student writing a paper that has an interesting thesis, and that makes several good points and has good paragraphs, but that ends up seeming incongruent and all over the place, because it's not polished enough, because the argument has not been fleshed out enough. If you think about it, the film is aiming for a lot; connecting Brad and Sarah and Ronnie takes a lot, and whatever message the filmmaker wants to send, it's bound to be a broad-ranging one, because it affects such a broad range of people. At the same time, it's meant to be about rather simple and even boring people who are a little or more than a little screwed up. I don't think the film manages to get that paradox across well.


As for the best part of this film, that would have to undoubtedly be Patrick Wilson's ass.

Very disturbing and oddly compelling suburban tale that never really resolves anything. The build-up is impeccable, but, once the film's over, you're not sure what it was building up to. I suppose anti-climatic is the best word to describe it, since I didn't feel like the characters really went through enough to cause their epiphanies. There were also far too many loose plot threads, such as Sarah's husband and Kathy's suspicions, that were left dangling, and the narration - which I found brilliant - disappeared for large stretches of time. I suppose I found it too short, despite the two hour plus running time - there was just too much going on for everything to be dealt with evenly. Still, it was well-acted - though I found that Patrick Wilson, not Winslet or Haley, gave the best performance - well-directed, and well-written - at least in terms of dialogue. The story just felt underwhelming.

I just saw this. Great distribution strategy, New Line!

Anyway, I'm conflicted. I agree with a lot of what Box said, especially this part...



The pedophile character and the events and characters surrounding him (especially the ex-cop, who is arguably the most pointless character in any film released in '06) simply did not work. Not only was there no connection to the rest of the story (no matter how forced of a connection Field attempts to manifest), but the film is positively schizophrenic regarding his character and the stance it has on the issue. We are supposed to feel sympathy for him throughout the entire first half of the film, and then we are supposed to be frightened of him throughout the entire second half of the film.

This schizophrenia spills over into the other characters, too. The film spends the vast majority of its runtime telling us to go after the things that make us happy in life, only to completely pull back on this concept in the final minutes. And why? For what reason? We don't know. You can't argue that Winslet and Wilson's characters realized what they had at home was great, because we are never shown this side of their home life as an audience. Field creates these petty, throwaway reasons for their affairs, and that's the end of it. You also can't argue that they realized they just weren't meant for each other, because all we are shown of their interactions together is sweaty bouts of aerobic sex in between loving and flirtatious banter.

The final twenty minutes or so of this movie is so convoluted, forced, and out of place that it really sours the great stuff that came before it, and there is a lot. The entire build up of Wilson and Winslet's relationship is fantastic, the narration is brilliant and hilarious (although it is kind of cheap to negate the need for interpretation from the audience), and Field does a fine job composing the look of his film.

Still, there was just too large a chunk of the film that I hated to flat out recommend this movie to anyone. It has great moments and some interesting ideas, but as a whole it does not work. It's hypocritical and betrays virtually all of its themes and characters by the time the credits roll.

a fantastic film. And yes American Beauty is in my top 10 of all time

A-.

A-


So...I have finally seen this acclaimed film and am ready to post my detailed thoughts on it.

I thought it was great. It wasn't flawless, but the effort was great and the result, albeit needing some plishing, ended up as one of last year's best films. Truth is, most of the topics and themes have been covered before in American Beauty and similar suburbia-horror-films. But this one still has an essence of its own, it is different.

First to the voiceover...at the beginning I disliked it quite a bit, but later into the film I came to realize how witty it was and how well it actually served the development of the story. At first it didn't seem to integrate well into the film, but then it all went smoothly. I did like the ovie's overall tone, shifting from dark dark comedy to a serious drama about desires and guilt. At times the film seems to be unsure of what it actually is, but most of the time the mixture works very well.

Now the acting is splendid. It has one of the best cast ensembles of last year and one that has been severly underrated. Kate Winslet is expectedly great and of course deserved her fifth nom (though Mirren deservingly won), but the true star of this one is Jackie Haley Earle as the pedophile. I really liked the way the film handled his character. It never oushes the viewer to feel sympathy for the "poor misunderstood sick man". It shows him for what he really is and Ronnie (Earle) realizes what is wrong with him and that he can't really fight it. The endng of him breaking down over his mother's death and castrating himself is heartbreaking and emotionally immensly powerful. One of the best cinematic moments last year. Now I was completely in love with Jack Nicholson's performance in The Departed as you might know, yet I think that Earle really should have won that Oscar for Best Supporting Actor last year. He was light years better than Arkin at least! Patrick Wilson's uneven and I must say that of all characters I disliked his a lot, but that was probably part of the character too. Jennifer Connelly is sadly underused. The other two who deserve more acclaim are Noah Emmerich as the guilt-ridden vigilant ex-cop and Phyllis Sommerville as Ronnie's mother. Those two have small, but flawless turns and complete the excellent ensemble cast.

The film is shot and edited very well. The atmosphere and the lack of music in many scenes are pitch perfect. I also must say that I especially loved the ending bit of the movie when all characters came to realize who they really were and what they wanted. For such a dark film, it actually ended on a fairly bright and hopeful note. I was just disappointed that Jennifer Connelly's character's storyline remained unresolved.

Overall, one of last year's best, though not too innovative, it feautures some of the best acting I have seen in a while.

Fantastic movie indeed!. Great performances all around, the Narration was odd but excellent at the same time. The story was slow but it kept me interested from start to finish.

A

Really enjoyed the film, very thought provoking and fascinating, Field might not nail all of the messages to a tee, but he comes pretty damn close.

A-

My second favorite movie from 2006 (after Blood Diamond). I regret not seeing this in theaters because I loooved it. Winslet slowly becomes my favorite actress, she's amazing here. I was surprised at how good Patrick Wilson actually was. I thought he was kinda bland in Hard Candy. Earle was good too but not as much as I expected him to be after all the comments I've read about his performance. My only minor complaint is that there should have been more about Jennifer Connelly's character. I'm definately going to check the book out. A

This one is definitely one of the most undersen movies of 2006 and I must say it's a huge improvement over Field's In The Bedroom.

Definitely check out the book.

For those interested...

Tom Perrotta, who penned Little Children (and the screenplay), just released a new novel, The Abstinence Teacher, another work examining sex in suburbia - this time with a little politics thrown in.

http://www.amazon.com/Abstinence-Teache ... 0312358334

I'm looking forward to reading it. I think I read, too, that movie rights for it have already been picked up.

^ I just picked that up over the weekend.

I swear, my opinion has changed 100% after seeing it a few more times. I saw it again theatrically after writing this review, and my grade went up to an B+. Now it's a solid A and one of my favorite films of 2006.

This became my favorite film of 2006. I agree that it's flawed, especially the finale, but it just has so many great things going for it and the whole thing is so fascinating and well-made that I can overlook that it's not perfect. The acting is great (though Haley is overrated), as are the narration, cinematography, score, etc... I give it an "A."

Art imitating life, imitating art.

I love reading through these threads after seeing a film, it often challenges your interpretation, and it certainly did with Little Children. I'm torn, so torn by this gorgeous mess.



Absolutely! I hated the narration, it took me out of the film and i did my best to ignore wherever possible. That aside....

I loved the acting, Kate and Patrick were great. The book club scene was fantastic, as was Kate breaking down in the car. Excellent direction, editing... but a few things really annoyed me. Ronnie's character just didn't gel well enough into the story for me and the conclusion? I bumped my head so i need my wife now... i got stood up so i'll go home... it just wasn't realistic to me.

That said, the rest of it was good enough to still be with me the day after, which is rare these days. Every which way i think about it there's brilliance and something to counter it. I'm going to settle for a random B+ for now, but that'll change the next time i think about it.