little children

****spoiler warning***** (there's a lot of plot description and i give away SOME stuff that happens at the end so proceed with caution...)

little children is the new film from todd field (in the bedroom) and i recently saw it for a second time. the first time i saw it, i wasn’t exactly sure what made me like it so much so now i’m attempting to figure that out. i think it has to do with field’s structuring and pacing of the film and the treatment of the subject matter. little children was adapted from a novel by tom perrotta and he worked on the screenplay with field. the narration in the film makes it feel very much like a novel as the narrator usually expresses inner thoughts of the main characters. the film begins with sarah (kate winslett) at the playground with her daughter and three other women who also have children there. it appears that the film might be a satire of suburban life as we witness sarah’s outsider perspective to the organized, strict, routines of the other moms. the narrator tells us that sarah wants to view these women anthropologically, and we are shown that she does not fit in when she forgets her daughters snack. the leader of the moms, mary ann (mary mccann) looks on condescendingly as she offers sarah tips on how to be better prepared for the day. at this point, brad (patrick wilson) enters the playground with his son and the women tell sarah about the ‘prom king’ as they refer to him, the very attractive stay-at-home father who makes them slightly uncomfortable. the women see brad at the playground every day that week and when sarah’s daughter and brad’s son end up on the same swingset, they finally meet. intercut with the playground scenes, are some news footage about a pedophile who has been released from jail to return to live in the neighbourhood; the man had been in jail for indecent exposure to a minor. the mothers at the playground are quick to condemn this man and there is a suggestion more than once in this film that “they should just castrate him”. brad and sarah end up spending most days of the summer together with their children, at the pool and eventually they begin an affair together. sarah’s much older husband is shown to have a porn addiction and brad feels inferior to his wife, kathy (jennifer connelly) although neither is shown as having a particularly bad home life. the affair seems to come out of their mutual dissatisfaction with their current states; sarah never finished her phd, and brad has failed the bar twice since finishing law school. they are both highly educated stay-at-home parents who have plateaued in their lives. i think we are meant to see them both yearning for passion in their lives and this causes them to regress to an adolescent state. i kept noticing that sarah and brad were acting very much like young adults; sarah comes to brad’s football game and cheers enthusiastically, brad becomes obsessed with the skateboarders, and their children become almost secondary thoughts for them; more like a mutual interest that provides the excuse for them to be together. i noticed this with sarah most when she takes her daughter swimming for the first time and tells her to just pee in the pool so that she won’t have to interrupt her flirtation with brad. along with this affair, both sarah and brad become more socially involved with other friends and clubs. sarah joins a bookclub with her workout friend and brad joins a night football team with larry, an old acquaintance. sarah’s interpretation of madame bovary makes clear her motivations for the affair, as well as confirms mary ann’s suspicions about her and brad. i believe larry and mary ann are counterparts who each represent the group mentality and panic surrounding ronnie (jackie earle haley), the pedophile. they are both the characters who suggest that he should be castrated, as if this would be a final solution to the problem. similarly, sarah and brad are deluded in thinking that their relationship would solve their mutual dissatisfaction in life. as we see in one of the final scenes, as brad and sarah are planning to run away together, ronnie takes the castration suggestion literally and this is what wakes sarah up to her delusions (she misplaces her daughter while talking to ronnie). i think brad recognizes his mistake when he attempts to skateboard and ends up unconscious, proving to himself that he is no longer a young man without responsibility. ironically, ronnie and his mother are the most self-aware characters and yet they cause the most anxiety to the neighbourhood. ronnie’s mother loves him unconditionally, and only wishes he could be happy. ronnie himself says to his mother that he has a psycho-sexual disorder, and in this scene we are shown that he recognizes and owns up to his problems. it is through ronnie that sarah, brad, and even larry eventually come to terms with their own. i think also by seeing how public ronnie’s indiscretions are, brad and sarah fear the same kind of shaming that ronnie consistently endures should their affair continue and be brought to light.

ps - i realize there's a lot going on in this movie that i didn't really touch on...so i'm interested to hear anyone's thoughts on the other stuff too.


watch the trailer