10 Best Films of the Decade 2000’s #7 Little Children (Todd Field, 2006): USA

Reviewed by Byron Potau. Viewed on DVD.

Of all of the films that will make this list, this one might raise the most eyebrows. Todd Field’s brilliant and under appreciated ensemble drama, Little Children, is a fascinating study of suburban midlife crisis, sexual hang-ups, and parenting that has yet to really receive its due. Here, adult insecurities are on full display, and the little children referred to in the title are the adults who have yet to grow up.

Sarah (Kate Winslet) doesn’t take well to parenting her young daughter. She feels like an outsider amongst the other mothers at the playground and senses her duties as more of an obligation and burden on her. She feels like something of an outsider in her own home with only a single room to remind her of her former life. Her husband, Richard, who knows it is ridiculous to be at war with one’s desires, develops an internet porn addiction which Sarah finds out about. Though not delved into deeply, this is Richard’s own minor attempt to escape from the confines of his life. Sarah creates a diversion and renewed freedom for herself with the friendship, then affair, that she develops with fellow parent Brad.

Brad (Patrick Wilson), AKA The Prom King, is emasculated by his more successful wife, Kathy (Jennifer Connelly), who earns the money while he takes care of their son. She watches over their finances and subtly tells Brad to cancel his magazine subscriptions or lets him know that it is she who decides if he can get a cell phone or not. To make it worse she dotes on their son letting him sleep in their bed while Brad rarely gets a chance to have sex with her. She sends him to study for the bar exam, but instead he watches the local skateboarders outside the library seeing himself in them and their wide open futures. Through his affair with Sarah and playing night football with ex-cop Larry (Noah Emmerich) and Larry’s cop buddies he is able to renew a sense of freedom in his life.

Larry, an ex cop with his own mental problems, spends his time harassing registered sex offender Ronnie (Jackie Earle Haley), driving by his house, and putting up flyers all over the neighborhood including covering Ronnie’s door with them, and spray painting “evil” on Ronnie’s walkway as he calls himself The Committee for Concerned Parents.

The film bravely addresses two dangers concerning sex offenders. Upon his release Ronnie is left open to such vigilante persecution as dished out by Larry. Knee jerk reactions and mob mentalities from the neighborhood to Ronnie’s release include suggestions of castration by some, while others say they’ll have a problem if they happen to see him.

While the film does an excellent job of showing how such a person can be harassed under our legal system which makes his crime public, ignoring any notion that he has paid his debt to society, it also shows Ronnie to be a very dangerous individual that the neighborhood really does need to be concerned with. He goes swimming at the town pool with a mask and snorkel so he can check out the kids underwater, and when he does go on a date with a woman his own age he sabotages it in an eerily disturbing scene. Ronnie also admits to his mother that he is not better, but they let him out because they had to. Not only is Ronnie’s real problem, a psycho sexual disorder, not addressed by the justice system’s incarceration of him, but he is left open to harassment from people like Larry upon his release.

Jackie Earle Haley, best known for his roles in the seventies in The Bad News Bears and Breaking Away, gives a chilling and brave performance as Ronnie, creating sympathy for a detestable character while also showing his creepy, perverted nature.

There is something very relatable about Sarah and Brad’s desperation as they find themselves in roles they never envisioned for themselves. As Sarah listens to overbearing mother Mary Ann (Mary B. McCann) force her opinions on the others and act as if she has it all figured out, scheduling time for sex with her husband the same as she schedules snack time for her children, it definitely makes you feel the desperation of Sarah’s predicament.

Kate Winslet lets herself look ordinary, and fearlessly makes her character complexly likeable and unlikeable at the same time as we support her in her struggle while also detesting her for her neglect of her child.

Patrick Wilson gives a brilliantly low key performance as, Brad, the object of desire for many housewives. He perfectly embodies the good natured, likeable, but somewhat dim father who can tell the ordinary looking Sarah “that beauty is overrated” in an attempt to calm her jealousy of his exceptionally beautiful wife.

Director Todd Field deftly balances the various characters and their stories, extracting excellent performances from all of them. The screenplay from Field and Tom Perotta, author of the book the film is based on, is very knowing and has a lightly satirical tone, underscoring the film with a sense of humor as we can relate to these characters, their immaturity, and their flaws.

The narrator, Will Lyman, speaks with a bit of irony and deadpan humor while insightful and amusing in his observations. A favorite moment is the narration of Brad’s football game, an hysterical send up of the NFL films.

Thomas Newman, one of cinema’s most underappreciated composers, brings a beautifully unique and haunting score to the film to complete its brilliance.

Though my choice for one of the best of the decade, this film was not even a Best Picture nominee in its own year. My hope is that this film does not get lost in the cracks as the years go on, but is fully recognized and appreciated for its remarkable insights into our very flawed existence.