Little Children

LITTLE CHILDREN (15)

D: Todd Field

New Line/Bona Fide/Standard (Todd Field, Albert Berger & Ron Yerxa)

US 2006

137 mins

Drama

W: Todd Field & Tom Perrotta [based on the novel by Tom Perrotta]

DP: Antonio Calvache

Ed: Leo Trombetta

Mus: Thomas Newman

Kate Winslet (Sarah Pierce), Patrick Wilson (Brad Adamson), Jennifer Connelly (Kathy Adamson), Jackie Earle Haley (Ronnie McGorvey), Noah Emmerich (Larry Hedges)

Figuratively speaking, Little Children is a modernisation of Flaubert's literary classic Madame Bovary, relocated from 18th Century France to the leafy, picket fence suburbs of modern day Boston, Massachusetts.

Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson star as two adulterous parents, unhappy in their respective marriages, who embark on an affair. Meanwhile, their idyllic small town is rattled when it emerges that paedophile lives amongst them, himself trying to put his murky past behind him and move on with his life, but a disgraced ex-cop doesn't want to let sleeping dogs lie.

This intricate drama uncovers the deep layers which a small suburban community might have in a more tasteful and easier to watch way than the way David Lynch may have approached similar material (Blue Velvet, for example) and I found it to have a little influence from Robert Altman's Short Cuts with its execution.

The performances of the ensemble cast are all excellent, particularly Kate Winslet and Jackie Earle Haley (both of whom received Oscar nominations), but the film itself wasn't as good as it could have been, and was definitely hampered by an awful Desperate Housewives-esque narration by Will Lyman which I found to be more intrusive than it was informative.

7/10