Little Children

Recently we went to see "Little Children". What a great film! It is a very compelling movie. It grabs you very early on in the movie and does not let you go. The movie is over 2 hours long, yet it could be twice as long and it would not would not have bothered me at all. I was mesmerized throughout the whole film. Heck, I was mesmerized 2 hours after the movie ended!

The movie is about modern suburban families. It is a combination of overachieving workaholic fathers and mothers and underachieving, highly educated stay-at-home dads and moms. It also has men who have failed in the workforce and women who are content as soccer moms. And of course, the movie even has the local pedophile living in the neighborhood. The movie starts out with several distinct storylines. The tales begin to weave in and out of each other in very interesting ways. Some very predictable, some not so predictable, but always believeable ways.

All of the actors give great performances. The two leads (Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson) are excellent. But probably the best performance was given by one of the supporting actors (Jackie Earle Haley), who plays the pedophile. The character feels very creepy and slimy, yet I felt a certain sense of sympathy for the character. Then I felt horror that I was actually feeling sympathy for a pedophile! Like real life, every character has some flaw, yet is capable of goodness as well. Except for the overachieving workaholics, every character suffers from self-doubts and wonders about his or her role in the world. It is kind of interesting, it seems like the workaholics should have more doubts about the lives they are leading and the others should worry less about their lives. Once again, like real life, the movie provides no easy answers.

We have seen 3 great movies in this Oscar Season (The Departed, Bobby and Little Children). I thought all of them were great in different ways. It is hard to compare them, since they are such different types of films. I have not seen all of the Oscar-worthy movies, but if you forced me to rank the ones that I have seen, then I would go 1) Little Children, 2) Bobby and 3) The Departed. Yeah, yeah, I know that Bobby was not that popular with the critics and thus will not fare well in the awards, but I still think it was one of the best movies I saw last year.