Little Children

Plot synopsis:
Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet) is a 30-year-old, stay-at-home mother in a small Massachusetts suburban community. She had been working on a doctorate in English, but once she married Richard (Gregg Edelman) and had their daughter, the presently five-year-old Lucy (Sadie Goldstein), she set aside her research. Now she spends her days taking Lucy to a local park along with three other stay at-home mothers: the severe and judgmental Mary Ann (Mary B. McCann) and more timid Theresa (Trini Alvorado) and Cheryl (Marsha Dietlein). They enjoy ogling from a distance Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson), the handsome and well built father who brings his son, Aaron (Ty Simpkins), to the park. When their children use the same swing set, Sarah and Brad have an opportunity to talk to one another, titillating the other women. But when they, on a lark, hug and kiss, the women immediately take their children out of the park and refuse to associate with Sarah anymore.Both Brad and Sarah have unhappy home lives. Brad has yet to pass the Massachusetts state bar exam and doesn't even want to be a lawyer. However, his bossy wife, Kathy (Jennifer Connelly), pushes him to succeed. She makes documentaries for public television for a living. They live a bit beyond their means, forcing them to accept financial support from Kathy's mother. Their sex life is non-existent because Kathy is too self-involved in her career and being a mother. When he is supposed to be studying for the bar exam, Brad instead sits and watches teenagers skateboard outside his house, fantasizing about being young and carefree again. One night, an acquaintance, Larry (Noah Emmerich), persuades Brad, who played quarterback on his high school football team, to join his amateur football team, the Guardians.Larry is a former police officer forced to retire a few years earlier when he accidentally shot a teenager who robbed a store. Now he is estranged from his wife and spends much of his time harassing Ronnie McGorvey (Jackie Earle Haley), a freaky neighbor recently released from prison after serving several years. Ronnie had been incarcerated for exposing himself to a minor and has a long criminal record for sexually molesting young girls. Brad does not feel comfortable with Larry's campaign against Ronnie to force him to move from the neighborhood, but rarely tries to prevent him from carrying it out.Sarah's marriage to Richard is as sexless as Brad's is to Kathy. In this case, however, it is because he is addicted to Internet pornography. One day she catches him masturbating in his office and they begin to sleep separately. She buys a flattering swimsuit and begins to attend the public pool because she knows she will see Brad there. They begin a deep if platonic relationship and their children become friends as well. Brad is drawn to Sarah's interest in him, even though he does not find her particularly physically attractive. Sarah craves being sexually desired by someone as conventionally handsome and masculine as Brad. One day, when they have to leave the pool due to a sudden rainstorm, they return to Sarah's house. Brad discovers a photo of himself tucked away in a collection of Shakespearean sonnets. Unable to contain his desire for each other, they have rough sex in the basement while their children sleep upstairs. Thus their emotional infidelity becomes physical as well.Meanwhile, Ronnie lives with his mother, May (Phyllis Somerville), who has taken him in after his release from prison. She believes that if he were to find the right woman, his sexual desire for children would disappear. Aware of his mental problems with the fascination for young girls, Ronnie knows this is futile but agrees to go out on a date May has arranged for him with a woman in another town, Sheila (Jane Adams). During dinner at a local restaurant Sheila and Ronnie seem to make a connection and she reveals her own emotional demons. However, the date ends badly when he asks her to park alongside the road, then begins to masturbate while scolding her not to tell on him.Elsewhere, Sarah and Brad grow closer. He skips taking the bar exam so they can have a romantic getaway together. Kathy grows suspicious and tells Brad to invite Sarah, Richard and Lucy over for dinner so she can meet them. The intimacy evident between Brad and Sarah confirms her suspicions, and Kathy arranges for her mother to come for an extended visit so Brad and Sarah can't see one another anymore. However, when Brad's football team plays its final game, Kathy and her mother stay home feeling that their suspicions about Brad are nothing. Sarah attends and cheers as Brad scores the winning touchdown in the team's only victory of the season. Afterwards, while Larry waits for Brad at a nearby bar to celebrate their victory, Brad and Sarah make out on the field. He admits the moment is his happiest ever and asks Sarah to run away with him. She agrees.Hurt that Brad has stood him up, Larry goes to Ronnie's house and wakes the neighborhood up by using a bullhorn to taunt Ronnie. The neighbors come out to ask him to stop but May confronts him angrily. In the process, she suffers a severe heart attack. Larry is arrested for assault and battery, and May taken to the hospital. While Ronnie sleeps in the waiting room, May dies. Her last act is to write a note to Ronnie: "Please be a good boy." Ronnie is distraught and despondent. He goes home and destroys much of his mother's collection of Hummel figurines, then takes a butcher knife from the kitchen.That very same night, Sarah and Brad agree to rendezvous in the park where they first met to run away together. Brad tells Aaron he loves him before putting him to bed, writes Kathy a note explaining why he is leaving her, then sneaks out while she and her mother finish the dishes. But before he can get to the park, he is distracted by the skateboarding teenagers again. They convince him to try a jump himself. Unable to resist the rush of wanting to re-live his youth, Brad does so but crashes and knocks himself out. When he comes to, he asks the ambulance driver to call his wife -- Kathy -- to meet him at the hospital. It turns out that he never left the note for her and tells one of the skateboarders to dispose of it for him.Meanwhile, Sarah takes Lucy to the park. She is shocked to see Ronnie stagger in. When Lucy briefly disappears, Sarah is frightened into realizing that leaving Richard for Brad would be a terrible mistake. She takes Lucy home and puts her to bed and decides to stay.Larry is upset about causing May's death. He genuinely wants to apologize to Ronnie and finds him in the park where Sarah left him. He notices blood on the ground. Ronnie has castrated himself and is bleeding to death. Larry picks him up and races him to the hospital. He knows Ronnie has done bad things in the past but also recognizes that doesn't mean he has to do bad things in the future. They arrive at the hospital at just as Kathy meets Brad's ambulance at the emergency room doors.

Tags: comedy, dark, psychological, realism, dramatic, thought-provoking, flashback, satire

Review:
"You couldn't change the past," the narrator of Little Children tells us at the movie's close, "but the future could be a different story." The lives of the men and women who live in the very paragon of bland suburbia appear to be crunchy (and even somewhat unforgiving) on the outside, but inside they break, well, just like a little girl.
A veritable sea of emotions, from love, despair, neglect, and hate churns below their pristine, everything-in-its-place veneers.The placidity of this particular neighborhood is jolted by two things: the arrival of a sex offender (Jackie Earle Haley) and the emergence of a relationship between married-but-not-to-each-other Sarah and Brad; both events, directly and obliquely, are remarked upon by the nattering nabobs of middle-class conservatism in the town, particularly the rather particular hausfraus and soccer moms.Sarah Pierce (Winslet) is a distant mother and wife; when she and her daughter Lucy visit the neighborhood playground, she sits away from the other mothers.
Like Sarah, Brad is a little emotionally distant from his wife and their son, Aaron, so it's no wonder he and Sarah become constant companions throughout the long, hot suburban summer, spending their days either at the park or at the public pool.The other main story thread involves the community's reaction to the presence of Ronnie McGorvey, convicted as a sex offender for flashing a young boy.
In Little Children, people make decisions for selfish reasons, and there's no wondrous epiphany that somehow saves the soul and good standing of the poor decision maker - people live with what they've done, or they don't make the decision in the first place.Winslet and Haley were nominated for their work here; the first-ever nomination for Haley, who was probably best known as Kelly Leak in the Bad News Bears films.
Little Children is a stark, seamless, unsettling story that grabs a hold of your psyche and twists it almost to the breaking point, relying on strong performances by Winslet, Haley, Wilson, and Emmerich as well as a tortuous plot that provides quite a jaded look at the tranquility of suburban life..
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.
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.
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.
Yet as a whole entity Little Children is a very interesting film that makes the best possible use of characters, relationships and suburban drama.
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.
The narrator serves as a warm and sometimes funny guide through the lives of Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet) and Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson), two stay-at-home parents locked into an empty and unsatisfying routine of childcare in a haunting, tree-lined suburbia while their spouses live more interesting lives out in the work force.We meet Sarah in a park where she sits apart from the other nattering, empty-headed mothers and tells herself that she's not one of them.
As these things often do, their relationship boils and builds into something torrid, and Sarah is left struggling to live a private life as a mother, and a private, socially unacceptable life where she's truly alive.Little Children works brilliantly as a mesmerizing character study about the way we judge others and ourselves.
He proves again his insight into real people and real relationships is a bit eerie and almost tough to watch as we often recognize ourselves in his characters.An incredibly well acted movie led by the usually mediocre Kate Winslet and an on the rise Patrick Wilson ("The Alamo", "Hard Candy" and this year's "Running With Scissors"), the cast creates an atmosphere of real life allowing us to forget the performances and concentrate on the multi-layered story (co-written by Field and novelist Tom Berrotta).
Having liked Todd Field's previous film 'In The Bedroom' and knowing that it had Kate Winslet and Jennifer Connelly (whose works I very much admire alongside their beauty), I decided to watch it anyway.
Kate Winslet does just that here with her torn, innocent character, and Jennifer Connelly plays her small part well, but almost everyone is believable and add dimensions to their roles, although the cast could not quite match "In the Bedroom" in raw talent.Going back to the screenplay, it is rich with quirky human dialogue with its various undertones and is able to sustain interest through the intertwining of the story lines that take you for a ride.
Not that they are little children themselves, more like teenagers coming to terms with the fact that they are moving away from youth, and that they will never see it again.The other Oscar worthy performance in this film is from Jackie Early Hailey.
The frames tell just as much of the story as the script.I know I'm gushing but there is just nothing I can say bad about this movie.My favorite thing about this movie, amazing cinematography, acting, directing and dialogue aside is the fact that nothing is black and white, no one is a hero, no one is a villain, they are all just people, doing the best they can.It is a rare thing to see real humanity shown to us in such a beautiful way as is done in Little Children.
Adapted very closely from Tom Perrota's exquisite novel, the story follows a handful of different characters, the two central ones being Sarah (Kate Winslet) and Brad (Patrick Wilson).
Other supporting character include Larry Hedges (Noah Emmerich), an aggressive ex-cop who befriends Brad, May McGovery (Phyllis Sommerville) a shut-in old lady, and Ronnie McGobery (Jackie Earl Haley), her convicted pedophile son who just got released from prison into the neighborhood after exposing himself to a little girl.Although very different from Field's previous film 'In the Bedroom', 'Little Children' is about equal in quality.
Winslet makes Sarah so in touch with her emotional needs and gives her such a charged urgency that I found her alluring, something I haven't felt towards her in her past performances, through she's always been an attractive and extremely good actress.In the other story, a recently-released child sex offender (he exposed himself to some kids) named Ronnie (Jackie Earle Haley) tries to exist in a community that is being taught to fear him.
Little Children, the second film by actor-turned-director Todd Field, and adapted from the novel by Tom Perotta, has been treated extremely unfairly due to its limited release in America.
Yet it still receives three important nominations: Best Actress in a Leading Role for the always great Kate Winslet, Best Supporting Actor for Jackie Earle Haley (working for the first time in fourteen years), and Best Adapted Screenplay for Todd Field and Tom Perotta.
So I waited patiently for the DVD, and after seeing it, can say that I wish it had gone wide.Little Children tells the story of Sarah (Kate Winslet) and Brad (Patrick Wilson).
Juxtaposing their story is that of Ronnie (Jackie Earle Haley), a pedophile recently released from prison, who is striking fear among many parents in the community.Despite its lengthy runtime and its very dialogue driven nature, Little Children is one of the best films of 2006, and simply cannot be missed.
Wilson (who was brilliant in Hard Candy) adds another excellent performance to his small roster, and only continues to prove that he will become a hot property in time, if he did not already seal that deal as it is.Small turns from Connelly and Noah Emmerich as a harassing ex-police officer are impressive, and have just the right amount of class to make them more than one-note characters.But the clear standout in the film is Haley.
The 'little children' of the title include a married man, Brad, and a married woman, Sara (not married to each other of course, played by Patrick Wilson and Kate Winslet), an ex-cop turned 'community-action' watchman (Noah Emmerich), and a sex offender/flasher (Jackie Earle Haley).
Field has a real knack here- and continues it from his breakthrough In the Bedroom- of cutting to the core of suburban discontent in the characters, though this time it's showing through (major) flaws and all, these are fully realized human beings who can't be turned away as mere clichés.The 'little children' of the story aren't the actual offspring of Winslet with her husband (a sometimes obsessor over wacky internet porno), and Wilson with his wife (Jennifer Connely, whom Brad describes after some prodding by Sara as a "knockout", even though he says beauty is "overrated").
Soon neither one can stop thinking about the other, they become closer as they meet everyday at the local swimming pool with their kids, and when they escape from a storm into her home one day and he finds a poetry book with his photo in there, the passion erupts completely.Meanwhile as their affair becomes all that really fulfills them everyday, there's a sub-plot involving a 'flasher', Ronnie, who in one of the very best scenes of the film in a mix of comedy and chilling tension, comes to the pool (after already being warned by the community for flashing himself in front of the kids at the playground), and when he's recognized as the face on all of those fliers all around town the pool empties out like the beach in Jaws.
As simple as that.Little Children accomplishes everything we can ask for in a drama, and it does it in a brilliant way, it's a film that definitely causes an impact in the audience, it makes them think about the characters and their actions, it makes them care, it makes them happy at times, angry at others and of course, sad too.
Haley was definitely the one who stole the movie with a disturbing performance that will make you shiver, truly one of the best acting we've seen in the last years.I only had one complain for Little Children and that was the ending.
I felt like I had been captured into the book, these characters had such depth and character, you felt for all of them in such ways, either you could relate or want to speak too and have some sort of relationship with.Sarah is a housewife and a mother who has lost a little something in her life, passion, while her husband is messing around on the internet, she meets the "prom king" of the block, Brad, and has a deep passionate affair with him.
There is another character in this film named Ronnie, who had a horrible reputation after exposing himself to a minor and is snubbed by the committee, but the only love of his life is his mother who is constantly trying to get an ex cop harasser off her son's back.Little Children is an incredibly touching film, the ending was so beautiful and really brought true closure to the story.
Todd Field's bold and evocative screenplay focuses on five characters: Sarah is the embodiment of the term "Desperate Housewife", a lonely woman trapped in loveless marriage, the possessor of a Masters Degree in Literature, the obvious product of an ambition that got lost along the way to her marriage and raising an adorable daughter; Brad is a husband and father whose desire to be a lawyer has begun to fade due to two failed attempts to pass the bar and now seems content to be a Mr. Mom, raising his son and allowing his wife Kathy, a documentary filmmaker, to be the family's primary breadwinner; Ronnie is an emotionally shredded pedophile trying to eek out a viable existence in a neighborhood where he has been publicly labeled a sexual predator; Larry is an ex-cop trying to forget his accidental shooting by making Ronnie's life a living hell.
Patrick Wilson (PHANTOM OF THE OPERA)offers one of his best performances as Brad, the emasculated house husband who finds release in an affair with Sarah: Jennifer Connelly turns in the performance of her career as Brad's wife: and in the movie comeback of a lifetime, Jackie Earle Haley, in his first film in decades, is mesmerizing as Ronnie, a shell of a human being who is trying to start over again.
Added to the mix are the would-be lawyer's wife(Jennifer Connelly,gracefully back-seating this film),a pleasant documentarian who may be more emotionally attached to her son than her husband/his father; a guilt-ridden,obnoxious macho ex-cop(Noah Emmerich)who leads the neighborhood watch;the gossipy,judgmental housewives on the block who both mentor and antagonize the grad student mom;the sex offender's elderly,overprotective mom; and,of course,the kids,Brad(the would-be lawyer)'s son and SArah(the grad student)'s daughter,both bright kids who almost have a certain knowing of the situation their parents are in,but offer little support and are(as one would expect)fairly powerless in this situation.
It is microcosmic in scale but macro-cosmic in subtext and meaning.Kate Winslet and Jackie Earl Haley got rightly nominated for their performances here and Patrick Wilson got wrongly overlooked.This film is reminiscent of American BEAUTY in that it is excellently written, acted and rides a subversive streak from beginning to end.
Using Tom Perrotta's novel of the same title, the story shows that at the end of the day, the characters are behaving and having the mentality of a children, even though they are adults.Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson plays Sarah and Brad, who are neighbors cum the couple under the limelight.
Kate Winslet is wonderful as usual playing the emotional wreck of the story, a woman who never quite allows herself to be happy, and Jennifer Connelly gives a subtle performance as the wife whose controlling nature means well yet accomplishes the exact opposite of what she desires.Field has put on film a very original telling of an almost contemporary fable.
It's certainly not a bad film but it's not a great one either and you get the sense it could have been.In a movie with a wide array of characters Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson have the two central roles of Sarah and Brad, two suburbanites who, with reason, are not particularly happy in their respective marriages.
An engrossing exploration of adult behaviour, sexual tension, isolation, prejudice, parenting and suburban angst, Little Children is an incredibly provocative, unusual and honest motion picture.Told by an omniscient narrator, the film charts the story of two unhappily married people, Sarah Pierce and Brad Adamson who begin a secretive affair out of a mutual longing for connection.
Her emotional life is particularly stunted, as her husband Richard indulges in pornography while Sarah spends her days caring for her daughter, all the while yearning for an alternative and wondering how she came to be like this at all.Brad is married to Kathy, a documentary maker who is more than a little upset that she is the sole breadwinner and constantly urges Brad to study for the bar exam, which he has failed twice, though he spends that time observing teen skateboarders and yearning for his lost youth.Into their midst comes recently released sex offender Ronald McGorvey who initiates the community's feelings of anxiety, especially those of ex-cop Larry Hedges who begins a hate campaign against McGorvey as a way of venting his own anger and loneliness.As the film progresses, we begin to understand that the title does not refer to the children but to the adults who behave irresponsibly, recklessly and selfishly.Brad and Sarah's affair is a way of temporarily filling a void in their lives created by their unsatisfying marriages.The film also portrays the heavy burden the children place on their parents and how the parent's personal happiness is thus prevented.Little Children is admirably carried by the ever outstanding and fearless Kate Winslet, who gives a performance of such honesty, nuance, intelligence and transformation, inhabiting Sarah and registering every requisite emotion her character experiences, completely justifying her fifth Academy Award nomination.The fluid cinematography and melancholy score ensure that the film's suburbia is constantly suspended in a dream like state and the audience is fully absorbed in this world of placid town pools, playgrounds, seemingly perfect families and expensive houses, but which ultimately prove a fragile facade to the dark struggles of its inhabitants, the marital and parental imperfection, the sharp paranoia.The equally excellent screenplay, which may bother some with its ever changing tone, is by turns acerbic, haunting, well-observed, heartbreaking, dark, uncomfortable and deeply satirical.
I think the movie Little Children is effective in showing a single mother named Sarah played by Kate Winslet is unhappy with life and feels trapped and lone who justs wants to be happy.