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MOVIE INFO

Director:
Todd Field
Cast:
Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Gregg Edelman, Sadie Goldstein, Ty Simpkins, Noah Emmerich, Jackie Earle Haley, Phyllis Somerville
Writing Credits:
Todd Field, Tom Perrotta (and novel)

Synopsis:
In a suburban town, two 30-somethings (Patrick Wilson, Kate Winslet) have early midlife crises and suffer through personal breakdowns and infidelity. As one would expect, the man's jilted wife (Jennifer Connolly) isn't exactly happy when she finds out about the affair. The situation only gets worse when a child molester moves into the neighborhood.

Box Office:
Budget
$14 million.
Opening Weekend
$97.953 thousand on 5 screens.
Domestic Gross
$5.446 million.

MPAA:
Rated R

DVD DETAILS
Presentation:
Widescreen 2.35:1/16x9
Audio:
English Dolby Digital 5.1
English Dolby Surround 2.0
Subtitles:
English
Spanish
Closed-captioned
Supplements Subtitles:
None

Runtime: 137 min.
Price: $27.95
Release Date: 5/1/2007

Bonus:
• Previews


PURCHASE @ AMAZON.COM

EQUIPMENT
Sony 36" WEGA KV-36FS12 Monitor; Sony DA333ES Processor/Receiver; Panasonic CV-50 DVD Player using component outputs; Michael Green Revolution Cinema 6i Speakers (all five); Sony SA-WM40 Subwoofer.

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Little Children (2006)

Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (April 18, 2007)

When we view the Oscar nods every year, there’s always one movie in there that gets a handful of prominent nominations even though hardly anyone ever heard of it. For 2006, Little Children was that flick. It earned consideration for Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay. Though it won none of these prizes, at least the nominations gave it a higher public profile.

Children shows the concerns that come when convicted sex offender Ronnie McGorvey (Jackie Earle Haley) moves into a quiet New England community. We meet the local moms, with an emphasis on Sarah (Kate Winslet) and her daughter Lucy (Sadie Goldstein). She brings Lucy to a park where she encounters tightly wound fellow moms Mary Ann (Mary B. McCann), Cheryl (Marsha Dietlein Bennett) and Theresa (Trini Alvarado). They moon over a stay-at-home dad they call “the Prom King”. Brad (Patrick Wilson) went to law school but can’t pass the bar, so documentarian wife Kathy (Jennifer Connelly) earns the dough.

Sarah stirs up the other moms when she approaches Brad on a bet. To create a sensation, she hugs and then kisses Brad. Though this starts as a gag, Brad and Sarah develop fantasies about each other. They begin to frequent the same pool, where they get to know more about each other. They also develop an idyllic routine where they avoid desired romance in exchange for an innocent friendship.

Eventually that changes, as their relationship develops into a full-fledged affair. The movie follows their interaction as well as elements of Ronnie’s life and his treatment in the community. We see various complications and intersections among these topics.

Children marks director Todd Field’s first effort behind the camera since 2001’s In the Bedroom. Like that flick, Children looks at the “behind closed doors” reality of seemingly quiet communities. Unlike Bedroom, however, we don’t get a particularly tight, insightful glimpse of the circumstances.

When I reviewed Bedroom, I applauded the movie’s subdued nature and its lack of histrionics. Children follows along the same lines, but it may actually be a little too restrained. At 137 minutes, it provides a rather long tale, one whose point doesn’t always seem clear.

Indeed, even when the credits rolled at the end, I still wasn’t too sure what to make of what I’d just watched. The excessive running time definitely creates some of the problems. Children takes such a slow, languid pace that it often appears to be standing still. Some of that may be intentional to demonstrate the ennui of suburban life, but it doesn’t work well for a film. Instead, it just makes the viewer impatient for something – anything – to happen. Not much does occur, so the viewer may start to drift off along the way.

The bifurcated nature of the story also forms some issues. The Sarah/Brad plot definitely takes priority, but the Ronnie story also makes up a major topic. The movie fails to connect these two terribly well. Instead, Children often feels like two different movies accidentally cobbled into one. The two stories eventually intersect in an awkward, unlikely manner, but much of the time, the split personality creates more distractions than anything else.

With such a long running time, I’d expect really good character development, but that doesn’t really occur. We get a pretty decent feel for Sarah and Brad, but the others end up as much more one-dimensional. This is a particular shame in the case of Ronnie, who doesn’t truly emerge as anything other than a stock movie pervert.

Actually, in a way I like the fact that Children shows that prison didn’t magically expunge his desires. He remains quite sick in the head, as only kids turn him on and women do nothing for him. I expected the movie to depict him as more of an innocent victim to contrast with the freaked out locals who act as though Hannibal Lecter moved in down the street.

I think the film could have better balanced those two extremes, though. Ronnie is a mildly sympathetic character, as he clearly desires to lose his abnormal desires, but the stereotypical pervert side of things becomes more dominant. The casting of the creepy-looking Haley doesn’t help; it’s very hard to disassociate his ferret-like appearance with the child molester mold. Ronnie doesn’t emerge as much more than the kind of sicko you’d find in a TV movie, and the story falters due to that.

Indeed, the movie itself doesn’t seem to know how it wants to depict Ronnie. During the first half, we sense that it paints the locals as judgmental, basically the villagers to poor Ronnie’s Frankenstein monster. The pivotal scene in which he visits the pool and causes a panic feels like something out of Jaws, and it paints the locals as irrational bigots. However, as the flick progresses, we see that they were basically right; Ronnie still is a mess psychologically and he really shouldn’t be trusted around kids. I don’t think the story works well when it tries to have things both ways.

Children comes with a lot of narration, a technique I don’t like. Those elements seem contrived and unnecessary. I think the movie can deliver the exposition without so much stilted delivery along the way. That’s one of the elements in Children that makes it a little more artsy and self-conscious than it should be.

While I can’t say that I disliked Little Children, I think it ends up as a missed opportunity. It doesn’t delve into its subjects with real insight, and it moves so slowly that it threatens to lose the viewer along the way. In addition, it often feels too contrived and forced for its own good. The film deserves credit for its difficult subject matter but simply doesn’t work as a package.


The DVD Grades: Picture B/ Audio B/ Bonus D-

Little Children appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.35:1 on this single-sided, double-layered DVD; the image has been enhanced for 16X9 televisions. This was a consistently good transfer, though not one that stood out as particularly strong.

Sharpness seemed fine for the most part. Some wider shots displayed a wee bit of softness, but those concerns remained modest. Usually the movie came across as crisp and well defined. Jagged edges and moiré effects caused small concerns, and I noticed a slight amount of light edge enhancement. As for print flaws, I noticed no specks, marks or defects along the way.

The film’s hues appeared fairly cool much of the time. Some of the pool shots came across as livelier, but much of the movie seemed pretty restrained. Colors could be a little too pale at times, but they usually were adequately well developed. Blacks seemed a bit flat as well, though they usually were acceptably dense, and shadows were reasonably clear. The image suited the flick for the most part.

One wouldn’t expect a slam-bang soundtrack from a quiet drama like Little Children, and the film’s Dolby Digital 5.1 audio won’t surprise anyone. The mix displayed a heavy orientation toward the front channels. Music showed decent stereo imaging, and effects created a fair sense of ambience. The surrounds added light reinforcement of those elements but didn’t do anything very substantial for the most part. A storm opened them up a bit, and a few other bits came across with minor vivacity, but not much occurred here.

Audio quality seemed fine. Dialogue appeared natural and warm, with no signs of edginess or problems related to intelligibility. Effects usually played a modest role, but they remained distinct and accurate and lacked distortion. Music stayed in the same stark vein as the other elements, and the score seemed clear and bright, with acceptable range and fidelity. The audio of Little Children appeared appropriately spare.

A few ads open the DVD. We get promos for The New World, A Prairie Home Companion, and A History of Violence. That’s it – no other extras pop up on the platter.

Since I liked Todd Field’s In the Bedroom, I expected to find merit in his similarly-themed Little Children. Unfortunately, I discovered a flick with too much pretension and not enough real force behind it. The flick boasted potential that it rarely managed to match. As for the DVD, it presents perfectly acceptable picture and audio but lacks any substantial extras. This is a disappointing movie and DVD.

Viewer Film Ratings: 3.6666 Stars Number of Votes: 12
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