Little Children

‘Little Children’ is one of ten or so films to have generated the much-coveted ‘Oscar Buzz’ this season, garnering itself three Academy Award nominations, along with several other Golden Globe and S.A.G. nominations. Of all the Oscar-buzzing films this year, ‘Little Children’ is probably the most American and traditionally Oscar-worthy in terms of how it has presented itself. Like all ‘good’ Oscar-baiting films, it ticks off it’s various requirements… based on a well-received work of literature (check), featuring Oscar-friendly talent (Kate Winslet and Jennifer Connelly, check), shows the disaffection that has poisoned American suburbia and the American dream (check)…

I’m sorry to be overly cynical (not really), but as much as some parts of this film moved and impressed me, there were too many stretches where I found myself thinking, ‘Man, I’ve seen this before.’ I think this movie would’ve really benefited from a stronger focus on the aspects that made it original, rather than the bored and trapped suburban housewife routine that it wheedles through with Kate Winslet. I guess I should go back and start this review at the beginning before I get into my opinion too much…

The ‘Little Children’ of the title refers as much to the adult protagonists as it does to their children. Sarah Pierce (Winslet, nominated for Best Actress) is the aforementioned bored housewife… she can’t face up to the responsibilities being a family-woman has given her, and she dreams of a less monotonous existence. Likewise, Brad (Patrick Wilson), is a stay-at-home dad who can’t bring himself to commit enough to being a lawyer to even pass the bar exam. Instead of studying at the library, he sits outside a skate park and watches the skateboarders, wishing he was young again (and without responsibility). It’s the stories of these two characters that form the crux of the story. The subplots (and the more interesting parts of the film) concern Ronnie (Jackie Earle Haley, nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar), a recently released sex offender whose existence forms the focal point for the entire neighbourhood’s outrage, and Larry (Noah Emmerich), a disgraced ex-cop with anger issues who seeks to bully Ronnie at every opportunity.

Like I said earlier, it’s these subplots which kept me watching. Ronnie’s story had a depth to it that got barely scratched, and it could’ve made for a more daring and original film had he been focused on more. Instead we get the main plot… the adulterous love affair, the lost opportunities, blah blah blah. Winslet and Wilson are good, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before. Jackie Earle Haley and Noah Emmerich provide exciting but less-focused on performances, and it was their final scenes in the film that had me crying – not the Winslet-Wilson ending.

The film also has a kind of uneven tone… it was occasionally blackly comic and had a kind of hokey old narration reminiscent of one of those old stop-motion Christmas or Easter specials. I think the film would’ve benefited from running with this more quirky and entertaining approach rather than the lengthy lapses into more straight-forward drama. The themes of responsibility, the future, growing up and abandoning unrealistic dreams wouldn’t have felt so bitter, uninteresting and unbearable either, had the film taken a less orthodox approach (or at least struck a less uneven balance between it’s mesh of tones). Maybe then it might’ve felt more like the melancholy suburban fairytale it should’ve been. It’s not a bad film, there are some quite brilliant scenes (the scene of mass hysteria at the pool comes to mind), I just found it a little lacking or unworthy of all the attention it has gotten.

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