Trouble in suburbia

There are a few serious critics out there who hate Little Children. For starters, they say Kate Winslet, who is nominated for the Best Actress Oscar for this movie, is too beautiful for her role.

Apparently in Tom Perrotta’s novel on which the movie is based -“ and he co-wrote the screenplay with director Todd Field -“ her character Sarah is much more ordinary-looking, an important plot point.

She is supposed to pale in comparison with the Jennifer Connelly character Kathy, the wife of the man she is bonking. In fact she is so gorgeously imperfect, so real and vulnerable and interesting as played by Winslet -“ who, in a year with less formidable competition than Mirren and Streep et al, would be nailing that Oscar hands-down -“ we can fully understand her lover’s cheating on his picture-perfect wife.

Loverboy Brad (played by Patrick Wilson, the tortured gay Mormon in Angels In America) stays home to mind their son while Kathy supports them with her documentary filmmaking. The other wives minding their children in the suburban playground call him the prom king behind his back, and he has that tanned blond American hunkiness mixed with a certain sexy knuckle-headedness that allows him to reassure Sarah, without a trace of irony, that beauty is overrated.

Into the world of these adulterous suburbanites comes Ronnie (Jackie Earle Haley), a convicted sex offender who’s released to live with his mother after serving two years for flashing at little girls. Rabid ex-cop Larry (a creepy performance by Noah Emmerich) tries to drive him from the neighbourhood by plastering his photo on trees and doors, leading to a major incident at the local swimming pool.

It’s a blistering hot day, the pool is packed, Sarah and Brad are lounging in the shade with their kids, and Larry, in breach of a court order, arrives with snorkel and flippers to perve on the kids underwater. Like a scene out of Jaws, the pool clears in an instant. Eventually, Ronnie, Larry, Sarah and Brad are linked in the movie’s suspenseful climax, a well-orchestrated sequence where all the little children are forced to grow up whether they like it or not.

Despite the subject matter, there’s a unnervingly humorous satirical tone to Little Children, an effect produced largely by a voiceover narration. This comic element has caused some controversy -“ critics don’t like being told how to interpret what they can see for themselves -“ but the narration disappears after a while.

It has performed its task, skewering the shallow lives of these privileged Americans and providing a counterpoint to the menace that lurks beneath their superficial existence.

Todd Field’s first feature In The Bedroom (2002) scored five Oscar nominations without winning any. Little Children, his second feature, has three this year and is unlikely to win. However, it is brilliantly acted and directed, beautiful to look at on the big wide screen, and it will leave you with plenty to think about.