Little Children

Even when the absurdly suburban characters in Little Children ring false they manage to be painfully real at other times. It's another movie anout people messing up their lives and the lives of the people around them, but this time there's hope that something can not necessarily be made right again but at least wrong can be stopped and the reality of family and decency revisited.

I'm starting to become a fan of Todd Field. He's got a knack for character-driven drama. It's when Little Children infuses a dry, dark sense of humor (usually from the documentary-type narrator giving insights and sometimes literal play-by-plays) that I felt bumped out of the tone of the film. It was because the film could be so zany that the more serious moments stood out. The film never finds a way to balance its shifts in tones.

I'm not looking to encounter any sort of anger for my next comments. I think Jackie Earl Haley's performance is overrated. I think because the writing and atmosphere of the film is so good it elevated the scenes with the actor. He was good, but I couldn't help thinking that any number of character actors could do just as good or better. It was an interesting choice for casting because by choosing someone no one would have recognized without all the press surrounding the actor's comeback, the character was made more real because there wasn't a famous face (like Winslet, Connelly, and what's his face from Phantom of the Opera and The Alamo, even Noah Emmerich from Beautiful Girls and The Truman Show) behind it. He was new to me, so it helped the character be fresh and interesting.

Another interesting casting choice - Kate Winslet as the "boyish" suburban housewife. I'm not sure anyone has ever thought of Kate Winslet as "boyish," and I am certainly not going to start now. I did really dig her speech at the bookclub. She started out so sure of herself and the power and truth behind her words, but then the truth spit back at her by the nasty park mate wounded her position and confidence in the quality of her affair. Winslet changes emotions with slight, subtle changes in voice and body language, fully capturing a woman at war with herself and trying to hide it all in front of some old women and the nasty park mate.

***1/2