Little Children

Dir: Todd Field

2006

**

There are certain elements that a film need in order to get noticed by certain sectors in the world of cinema. Todd Field's Little Children ticked all the right boxes to be considered by the awards givers, critics and the mainstream in general, even though it really isn't all that good. It's got sex (always a seller), controversy (Paedophilia, the hot topic of the day), and an exaggerated and rather contrived look at society that makes the viewer feel superior and poetic sounding narration. The combination of these elements never fails. However, while a couple of the performances were excellent, I thought the story and characters were shallow and poorly written. Kate Winslet's performance as a frustrated young mother is very good, it is just a shame that she is surrounded by two-dimensional characters that are purely in place to accentuate her role. I found this to be rather lazy on the part of the writing, the one eyed man being king in the land of the blind and all that. These exaggerated characters made the film look rather amateurish in my opinion and prevented me from taking it as seriously as I believe the film makers intended. Patrick Wilson's character is also badly written, fairly unlikable for a leading role and inconsistent throughout the film. Jennifer Connelly and Gregg Edelman are also too good to be used as the tired stereotypes that they are in this film. Jackie Earle Haley is fantastic in what must have been a difficult role to play but again, when acting against rather awful written characters (such as Noah Emmerich's Larry Hedges) his performance is ultimately stilted. Narration should be used only under specific conditions and this wasn't one of them. It was used as a very lazy method of adapting the lines from the book it is based on into the film and it actually muddles the fluidity of the story. It's terribly unconvincing from start to finish with a conclusion that couldn't have been further away from the payoff I felt I deserved after sitting through it.