Movie Notes: Little Children

To be honest, a one-word review of this movie would involve me shrugging my shoulders and saying ''eh...'' It's not bad really. The acting is very good, the storyline is fairly interesting, and the denouement makes sense. But, again... eh...

Nearly every movie that is set in the suburbs, aside from the 80s Spielbergian kid movies, deals with either the stifling conformity of the suburbs or adultery. Little Children deals with both and throws into the mix a perv who likes to expose himself to children. To quote John Goodman in The Big Lebowski ''Eight-year-olds, Dude.''

Kate Winslet plays a stay-at-home mom who starts an affair with a stay-at-home Dad because the two of them are bored and stifled in boring and stifling suburbia. What this means is that, once again, we get to see Kate Winslet nude, and I have a suspicion that she has a clause in her contract stating that her directors have to include a nude scene to work with her.

Winslet is good, her Papa paramour, played by Patrick Wilson, is good, and the pervert, played by Jackie Earl Haley, is also good. There's also a neighborhood committee of one, played by Noah Emmerich, who wants to get the pervert out of the neighborhood, and he's also fine. I also liked that it dealt with the same issues that American Beauty dealt with, but without the one-dimensional corniness of that film. But, in the end, the movie basically tells us that the suburbs are boring and conformist, self-righteous crusaders tend to have their own issues, perverts are people too, and middle-aged middle-class people have affairs because they're bored and a bit selfish. Eh... great. But, you know, I hear that life in the slums can be a bit stifling as well.

Note: In spite of having no spare time at all, I archived my movie notes HERE to make them easier to access.