Little Children |  | Director: Todd Field
Actors: Kate Winslet, Jennifer Connelly, Patrick Wilson, Gregg Edelman, Sadie Goldstein
Studio: New Line Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
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Rating:  151 reviews
Sales Rank: 5439
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), Spanish (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 130 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: N10657
UPC: 794043106576
EAN: 0794043106576
ASIN: B000N3SU92
Theatrical Release Date: November 3, 2006
Release Date: May 1, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Kate Winslet, Jennifer Connelly and Patrick Wilson star in the Academy Award nominated film Little Children, the latest work from Oscar-nominated writer/director Todd Field. Based on the novel by Tom Perrotta, Little Children centers on a handful of middle-class suburban parents whose lives unravel in the wake of an adulterous affair.Running Time: 137 min. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Kate Winslet operates at a galaxy-class level in Little Children, Todd Field's gratifyingly grown-up look at unhappy suburbia. Winslet is magnificent, in an Oscar-nominated performance, as a stroller-pushing mom who becomes attracted to a passive househusband (Patrick Wilson). Their slow-burning infidelity (Field wisely allows time to pass in this unhurried film) is contrasted with a more sensational subplot, about a convicted pedophile (Jackie Earle Haley, also Oscar nominated) returning to the neighborhood to live with his mother (Phyllis Somerville). Field, who brought his civilized approach to In the Bedroom, uses a deliberately literary style here, including a device with a narrator who sounds as though he's sitting at our side as he reads from Tom Perotta's novel. (The narrator is a superb touch--his cultivated voice distances us from the sloppy passions of the characters.) The film's biggest miscalculation is a self-appointed neighborhood vigilante (Noah Emmerich) determined to make life miserable for the pedophile. But Wilson is appropriately nebulous, Jennifer Connelly solid as his wife, and Haley (child star of the Bad News Bears movies), as the creepy, childlike molester, found himself rediscovered after a long career layoff. There's decent acting here, but Winslet is in a zone of her own, with so much emotional honesty and subtlety of expression that she transforms a good movie into a must-see. --Robert Horton
Product Description
BASED ON THE NOVEL BY TOM PERROTTA, THIS TELLS THE STORY OF A GROUP OF YOUNG SUBURBANITES WHOSE LIVES INTERSECT ON THE PLAYGROUNDS, TOWN POOLS & STREETS OF THEIR SMALL COMMUNITY IN SUPRISING & POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS WAYS.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 151
 Garbage! December 25, 2009
Anony Mous (Los Angeles)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
This movie, despite some good acting, chiefly glorifies adultry and the emptiness of marriage--it goes nowhere and left me totally unsatisfied. It is an unfocused story--if you want to call it that--which I found highly contrived and, for the most part, often unbelievable and quite predictable. Don't waste your money on this. One of the worst movies I've ever seen!
 Paraphilia NOS December 11, 2009
PsyRC (USA)
Yippeee... I wanted to watch this film after reading positive reviews galore, in addition to the "controversial subject matter". What is seen is a barrage of clichés disguised by a different eggshell. Dissatisfied middle-class suburbanites looking for a way out of their self-imposed cage. The only ways out are to regress to primitive instincts, as wanting to be a skateboard-riding teenager or simply reinventing primordial lust. Now, the reasoning behind it I guess is still formulaic. Fetishism on the one hand (collecting odd items from some internet diva) and the hardened domineering wife-boss figure, symbolically castrating the jobless man of the house, "reduced" to a social mockery of the stay-at-home parent. The anti-hero, Mr Exhibitionist, is perhaps the one who needs to be focused on as the most human of all. Touted as a pedophile in the subtext (even though this is insanely untrue), he displays the utmost need to be seen in his ordinarily repressed sexuality.. this is why exhibitionists do what they do, they need their sexual organs to be noticed, and their is unbearable anxiety and distress if their impulses are not obeyed. The regression also extends to his oedipal ties with mommy. Now, everybody goes through conflict, and all is magically resolved. The killing of 2 birds with one stone comes with the washed-up ex-cop who killed a kid... in matters of pure instinctual survival drive, he manages to display reaction formation (loathing of the sexual offender when, deep down inside, perhaps he identified with him or had the wish to save him) as well as a fairy-tale chance to save the child-figure he murdered in the past (hence "atoning" his past errors), after the man cuts his own penis off, in a fantastic demonstration of a partial object coming to life and dying by a symbolic (and literal) detachment from the conflicted psyche. Of note, it is of a more pedophilic nature to lust after the childhood universe (even if it's in a veiled and nonsexual way), as the skateboarding scenario would suggest... it's called romantic pedophilia, and may certainly convert to a sexual kind... but these hypotheses are useless.. after all, all conflict needn't be faced head-on to simply disappear. But, of course, as American culture has time and again jammed down everyone's throat, nobody needs to have any deep realization about the root of their problems nor gain even the slightest insight, it's all a matter of some intangible force tapping them on their limbic system, and the self-contained story comes to a close with the happy ending preceding the closing credits, allowing us to believe nothing negative will derive from subsequent events.
Wacky Ending to Adult Situations - November 16, 2009
Loyd E. Eskildson (Phoenix, AZ.)
The movie is definitely not for young children, but about characters and crisis around them, as they grow and play in a straight-laced American suburb. A voice narrates "Little Children" the movie off and on. Some scenes the narration is a plus, and others you feel talked down to. However, by performances and plot, the movie grabs you.
"Little Children" shines light on hypocrisy in everyday suburbia lives. It shows our tendencies to feel superior to the people we label as guilty of sins. Oftentimes we are guilty of sins of different sorts. There are four characters to watch - a wife who cheats on her husband, a husband who cheats on his wife, a pedophile living with his mother, a messed up cop. They are all interesting characters who do things out of public view, but know their sins as they talk of others.
What is intriguing is that we get to observe the two-faced characters, who also observe each other. There are children playing throughout - on the playground, at home, and in the swimming pool. They see and interact as the adults and parents go in and out of affairs. The main affair is between Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet) who has an affair with a stay at home dad, Brad (Patrick Wilson). They progress in a relationship you think will end with them getting divorced and moving on - however a wacky ending will make you wonder if this was the same couple at the beginnign of the movie.
Along with the adult affairs, there is a story about the neighborhood's child molester. His name is Ronnie played superbly by Jackie Earl Haley. Ronnie is a mother's boy and shielded and cared for by her when he comes home from prison. Somehow he becomes forgivable as her love for him never fades. She is optimistic about his future.. He is hated by the neighbors who were shown on the news saying they did not want him in their neighborhood. We soon realize that he is not the only one who has hurt a child.
Overall is is good drama highlighting lies we tell ourselves to make things right. The ending is a surprise - not expected - but for me it defied logic.
 Field's 2nd Masterpiece. November 8, 2009
William R. Andrews (Los Angeles, California, USA)
Personally, I found this to be the best American film of 2006. Mr. Field has crafted his 2nd Masterpiece. A brilliant expose of postmodern irresponsibility & suburbanite dysfunction.
In my mind, Field is one of the more interesting & mature American writer / director's working today, I'm excited to see what he chooses tackles next. There is something about his narratives that are both familiar and unsettling, and as with all great dramatic films his stay with you long after the viewing experience.
It's the hunger, the hunger for an alternative, refusal to accept a life of unhappiness. October 31, 2009
Andrea Bowhill (England)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Tom Perrotta novel Little Children has been adapted for screen. Tom Fields takes to the directors chair for this black comedy which brings us viewers into a world of suburban secrets, sexual paranoia and midlife crisis where damaged self-esteem hangs by a thread and acts of desperation begins to unfold. While the films does provide laughs there are also plenty of shocks with serious factors while the grown-ups try to save their own lives and sense of worth, protection for their own young children will never fail them, as an even bigger fear hangs over a whole community a sex offender is in their mists.
A narrator talks us through the bigger picture letting us know the characters deeper thoughts and feelings and shifting viewpoints. (Kate Winslet) plays Sarah a women with a small daughter, her husband is a marketing executive and also a secret enthusiast of internet porn. Sarah had felt for sometime disenchanted with everything, her life, husband and the uptight small minded moms at the towns playground, she'd fallen into just marking time. Sarah deliberately strikes up a flirtatious friendship with Brad (Patrick Wilson) a stay at home dad known by the other playground moms as Prom King.
Brad is caught up in his own failures of life, hoping to become a lawyer but had so far failed his bar exam twice. His beautiful wife (Jennifer Connelly) had her own career success and he feels inferior just living in her shadow. Uncertain of what he wants Brad keeps his day busy, looking after their young son, he also joins the campaign against the local pedophile. Brad and Sarah friendship has profound disorientation for both; yet it's also their salvation, a curiosity, a fresh excitement, needing each others company just to feel alive!
Strange mix of love and hate going on in this film, the title, Little Children doesn't just refer to the young, instead applies to all ages. All characters show there childlike vulnerability. The pedophile Ronald McGorvey (Jackie Haley) being the prime example portraying him in this film as childlike and living with his mother, trying to bring a sympathetic side to a much-hated character, which was always going to be a tall order for any actor to pull off. But Jackie Haley does put in a powerful performance quite a few haunting scenes like when his lowering himself into the children's shallows of a packed pool with mask and flippers in tow causing complete panic and another scene where his mother sets him up on a dinner date, the results are just halloweeny; creepy and an excruciating embarrassment for all.
Summing up : Great Casting; all performances were strong Kate Winslet marvelous performance in this beautiful shot film. It ticks over nicely scene by scene, the narrator voice for me was the most annoying part, I found it far too monotone. overall It's a film about private addictions, secrecy and denials; enjoyable dark comedy, I'd give it three and a half stars; worth watching.
Andrea Bowhill
Showing reviews 1-5 of 151
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