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Todd Field’s Little Children is littered with exactly that, little children both literally and figuratively. In a quiet suburban community in Massachusetts children play on the slide in the playground and swim in the pool. The adults in this community are the little children that the movie is focusing on however. They range from a corporate executive who puts his family on hold so he can frequent a porn site, to primary care-giving parents who just need a break, to a bully with nothing else to occupy his time, to a recently released convict with a penchant for showing his goodies to young girls.

Kate Winslet plays Sarah, a wife and mother with a Ph.D. in Literature who is a shell of her old self and just wants some time away from her life. One day she meets Brad (Patrick Wilson), a stay-at-home dad who can’t seem to pass the bar exam, in the park with his son and they immediately share a connection. Brad likes to sit and watch kids on their skateboards rather than study for the exam or go home and face his cold wife (the five-alarm fire Jennifer Connelly). Sarah and Brad spend the next few weeks fantasizing about each other before reuniting and forming a friendship that yearns to be something more. On the side of this, a sex offender (Jackie Earle Haley) was recently released from prison and is living in the community with his mother. Because of this, an ex-cop with nothing but time and guilt on his hands spreads fear throughout the community about “a predator” in the midst, and pushes a brittle family and community over the edge.

The fact is that, like American Beauty, none of the adults fit the mold of what ideal adults should be. Every character in this movie has some major flaw and in every case, it is big enough to ruin their life and their families. Overall Little Children does a good job of separating the character flaws while tying all the characters in together.

Grade: B

Side note: I think its kind of funny that Kate Winslet is in this movie and her husband, Sam Mendes, directed American Beauty. The two movies are strikingly similar at times.