Little Children (film)

Little Children
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Todd Field
Produced by	Todd Field Albert Berger Ron Yerxa
Screenplay by	Todd Field Tom Perrotta
Based on	Little Children by Tom Perrotta
Narrated by	Will Lyman
Starring	Kate Winslet Patrick Wilson Jennifer Connelly Jackie Earle Haley Noah Emmerich Gregg Edelman Phyllis Somerville
Music by	Thomas Newman
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date(s)	November 6, 2006 (2006-11-06)
Running time	130 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$14 million
Box office	$14,821,658

Little Children is a 2006 American drama film directed by Todd Field. It is based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta, who along with Field wrote the screenplay. It stars Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley, Noah Emmerich, Gregg Edelman, Phyllis Somerville and Will Lyman. The original music score is composed by Thomas Newman. The film premiered at the 44th New York Film Festival organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

Plot

Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet) is a reluctant housewife and mother in an upper-middle class suburb of Boston. She is married to Richard Pierce (Gregg Edelman), a successful yet distant husband, who is secretly obsessed with an internet porn star. Sarah refers to her daughter Lucy as an "unknowable little person" and feels out of place around the other mothers at a local playground.

Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson) is a former college football player who's married to Kathy (Jennifer Connelly), a documentary filmmaker, with a young son named Aaron. Brad is depressed and frustrated, as his wife is the breadwinner and he is a stay-at-home father who has failed the bar exam twice. Each day he leaves home with the pretense of going to the library to study, but spends the time watching skateboarders at the nearby park. He joins a policeman's touch football team at the urging of a friend, Larry Hedges (Noah Emmerich), a disgraced former police officer.

Sarah and Brad meet on the school playground, where Sarah suggests they hug to shock the watching mothers nearby. Brad kisses her, and it quickly becomes apparent that the two are attracted to each other. Over the course of several visits to the local pool, Sarah and Brad get to know each other, and soon begin an affair.

Meanwhile, Ronald "Ronnie" James McGorvey (Jackie Earle Haley), who has served a prison sentence for indecent exposure to a minor, has moved back into the neighborhood to live with his mother. Larry launches a harassment campaign against Ronnie, handing out posters, vandalizing his house, harassing and almost assaulting the man and his mother. Ronnie's mother (Phyllis Somerville) tries to help by setting Ronnie up on a date, which ends badly with him masturbating in his date's car outside a children's playground.

Brad and Sarah finally see each other at a football game, where he asks her to run away with him; the two agree to meet up at a local park the next night. After the game a drunken Larry goes to McGorvey's house and further harasses him, using a megaphone to wake the entire neighborhood. Mrs. McGorvey tries to stop him, but Larry pushes her down. She has a heart attack and later dies in the hospital. Ronnie is devastated at losing the one person who loved him.

That evening Sarah packs a bag and takes Lucy to the playground to wait for Brad. On the way to the playground, Brad is again transfixed by the young skateboarders, who dare him to try one jump on a short stair rail. Brad can't resist and ends up injuring himself. Sarah is unexpectedly met at the playground by Ronnie instead and tries to comfort him, leaving Lucy to wander off by herself. This frightens Sarah into realizing that leaving Richard would be a terrible mistake. Once she finds Lucy, Sarah tearfully embraces her daughter and goes home. Brad is taken to the hospital and asks the police officer on the scene to call his wife.

Larry comes to the park to find Ronnie and apologize for harassing him. Noticing blood dripping off Ronnie, he is horrified to discover that Ronnie has castrated himself. Panicked, Larry picks Ronnie up and takes him to the hospital. They arrive just as Kathy meets Brad's ambulance at the emergency room doors. The film ends with an image of a remorseful Sarah sleeping alongside Lucy in their home.

Cast

• Kate Winslet as Sarah Pierce
• Patrick Wilson as Brad Adamson
• Jennifer Connelly as Kathy Adamson
• Jackie Earle Haley as Ronald James McGorvey
• Noah Emmerich as Larry Hedges
• Gregg Edelman as Richard Pierce
• Phyllis Somerville as Mae McGorvey
• Sadie Goldstein as Lucy Pierce
• Ty Simpkins as Aaron Adamson
• Helen Carey as Jean
• Catherine Wolf as Marjorie
• Mary B. McCann as Mary Ann
• Trini Alvarado as Theresa
• Marsha Dietlein as Cheryl
• Jane Adams as Sheila
• Raymond J. Barry as Bullhorn Bob
• Rebecca Schull as Laurel
• Sarah Buxton as Slutty Kay
• Will Lyman as Narrator (uncredited)

Production

Perrotta and Field working on the script for Little Children

For this film, director Todd Field and novelist Tom Perrotta intended to take the story in a separate and somewhat different direction than the novel. "When Todd and I began collaborating on the script, we were hoping to make something new out of the material, rather than simply reproducing the book onto film," says Perrotta.

Critical reception

Reviews of the film were generally very positive. Based on 152 reviews collected by the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 79% of critics gave Little Children a positive review (122 "Fresh"; 30 "Rotten"), with an average rating of 7.8/10. A. O. Scott of The New York Times said "Mr. Field proves to be among the most literary of American filmmakers. In too many recent movies intelligence is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality — even more than its considerable beauty — that distinguishes Little Children from its peers. A movie that is challenging, accessible, and hard to stop thinking about." Scott later placed Little Children ninth on his list of the top 10 films of 2006.

The Los Angeles Times's Carina Chocano said "Little Children is one of those rare films that transcends its source material. Firmly rooted in the present and in our current frame of mind — a time and frame of mind that few artists have shown interest in really exploring — the movie is one of the few films I can think of that examines the baffling combination of smugness, self-abnegation, ceremonial deference and status anxiety that characterizes middle-class Gen X parenting, and find sheer, white-knuckled terror at its core."

Differences Between the Novel and the Film

The novel ends with Todd and Sarah planning to leave their spouses. But there is a definite catch when Sarah finds, via a phone call, that Richard has left her for an internet porn star called "Slutty Kay" Sarah pushes her daughter Lucy on the swing around 9-10 p.m. while waiting for Todd, who does not show up. Just when she starts to lose hope, Ronnie shows up and tells her he killed a little girl. Larry suddenly approaches, ready to kill Ronald, but finds it in his heart to offer his condolence for May's death. Sarah just sits, baffled, wondering how she will raise her daughter, whom she feels she has greatly let down.

Accolades

Main article: List of accolades received by Little Children

Film archives

35mm safety prints are housed in both the UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Museum of Modern Art's permanent film collection.

External links

• Little Children at the Internet Movie Database
• Little Children at AllRovi
• Little Children at Rotten Tomatoes
• Little Children at Metacritic