LITTLE CHILDREN

"It's the hunger, the hunger for an alternative, and the refusal to accept a life of unhappiness."

Ever since Sam Mendes’s AMERICAN BEAUTY won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1999, there has been a wave of ‘suburbia’ films, all of which haven’t dealt with the topic as well as Mendes’s masterpiece did. The closest any film came to matching the subtle drama and razor-sharp wit of AMERICAN BEAUTY was first-time director Todd Field’s 2001 film IN THE BEDROOM, which was good, but a little overbearing.

His newest film (and still only his second) is LITTLE CHILDREN. The film has been under the radar every since its October limited release, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why Miramax hasn’t pushed harder for it. It is a challenging, thought-provoking film headlined by an Oscar-worthy turn by Kate Winslet. She is middle-aged housewife Sarah, who finds herself in a rut; a stay-at-home mom who has absolutely no excitement in her life. Her husband masturbates to pornography and always works, and every day she takes her daughter to the same park to waqtch her play the same games, while listening to the same women talk the same gossip.

Her life is turned upside down when a new man enters her life. He is played by Patrick Wilson, and is Brad, just another man stuck in a rut. A stay-at-home dad (even more degrading to him) who also takes care of his child during the day. He is going for the bar exam for the third time, but never feels the urge to study. He is in a constant daze, similar to SarahThey aren’t necessarily unhappy with their lives. They’re just bored.

The two slowly begin an heated affair. Winslet exposes all, twelve (yes, twelve) times in various sex scenes. There is an intimate and exciting electricity between the two adulterous spouses, who view this as the first action in years. This is not the only action in the film though. There is a steady growing of energy and tension as events take place in a way that strangely brought DO THE RIGHT THING to my mind. An unnamed narrator injects feeling and thoughtfulness into an already teeming story. Located near a train station, the suburban setting's tension escalates as the film progresses, with such conflicts as a convicted child offender moving in taking center stage.

I have forgotten to mention two of the film's best performances, shame on me. Jackie Earle Haley plays the child molester, a socially disabled pervert who still is not naturally a bad person. "Just because you've done a bad thing doesn't make you bad," says his mother, who takes care of him. The character is twisted and complex, at times innocent, at other times pathetic, likeable, or despicable. Haley taps all of these emotions masterfully. The underrated character actor Noah Emmerich plays against type, as an aggressive ex-cop with a dark past (darker than the convicted child molester's, maybe) who takes his anger and frustrations with life out on the man locked in his mother's home. Both of these are great characters, and Haley and Emmerich go for broke.

At its heart, LITTLE CHILDREN is about wanting to be more. Not only do Sarah and Brad have a passionate affair, but Sarah buys a new bathing suit and Brad joins a football team. Looking good means feeling good, right? At the end, Sarah, Brad, and the two sociopaths have all reached a peace within themselves, in different ways. This is a mini-masterpiece, and deserves to be seen by a wider audience.

A