Little Children

Not a bad film, but a major disappointment based on expectations from previous work of director Todd Field (In the Bedroom) and writer Tom Perrotta (Election, Joe College, this novel), particular favorites of mine. No disappointment in Kate Winslet -- by herself she makes the film worth watching -- except for the potential criticism of being too beautiful for the role. Though I guess they were setting the bar high by making her only have to be less beautiful than the wife of straying hubby Patrick Wilson, played by Jennifer Connelly. Jackie Earle Haley won a lot of praise for his comeback role as the paroled pedophile who inflames the passions of a well-off suburban New England community and sets in motion what story there is. I for one thought the movie, and the original novel, would have been better off without that character at all. As it was, I found the film all over the place and uncertain of tone, with some very good scenes and some very strained scenes, patched together with a most annoying narration. On the one hand, it was good to hear Perrotta’s wry novelistic voice, but on the other it betokened a failure of focus and imagination in the film as an independent entity. And it was disconcerting that the actual narrator’s voice was familiar from dozens of PBS documentaries, throwing me out of the proceedings even more. This film might have been Rohmeresque, if not Flaubertian, but settled for the desperation of housewives and the hyped up terrors of suburbia. (2006, Images, n.) *6* (MC-75)