Little Children
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Movie Reviews of Little Children
Movie Review: Masterful
Summary: 5 Stars
There is a bucolic, brief scene of restless suburbanite Sarah (Kate Winslet) sitting peacefully under a tree, reading, in Little Children. Her daughter Lucy plays happily nearby as the leaves rustle and the birds chirp. Everything is bathed in perfect light. All of the elements--the camera, the performers, nature, etc.--conspire to make an invigorating, warm shot.
This single scene sums up the overall tone for director Todd Field's assured sophomore effort. He chooses this image, which moves, languidly, from a tight full-body shot of the serene actress to a longer, more atmospheric shot. As the first image the viewer sees on the menu page of the DVD. It is an evocative, iconic shot that speaks volumes without any words. It is pure, gorgeous ambiance--something Field is shaping up to be very keen on, and very good at.
A leisurely little movie that pits an acerbic script (by Field and Tom Perrota--who wrote the expansive 350 page novel on which the film is based) with a brilliantly mismatched ensemble, Little Children is a rare contemporary film that is nearly perfect in its execution. Stillness in both mood and pace are just as important to the director as lingering close-ups of his actors' attractive reactions. Field is able to present, believably, a vision of bourgeois suburbia as an almost mythical netherworld. Often, dangerously, the atmosphere here can change on a dime: from playful to sexy to deadly and back again within the same scene.
Sarah is sort of a bad mother. She's a little selfish about her time. She doesn't quite connect to her adorable moppet of a daughter in the way she expected to. The film is unafraid to debunk the stereotypes about settling down and being a "mommy". Sarah would say that it isn't all it's cracked up to be. She left a life of academia behind to marry an older man and take over the pristine, first wife-decorated manse located on a prized plot of land in this snobbish suburban enclave.
The other brittle, embittered young women that hang out at the park with their regimented children treat Sarah to an infuriatingly smug and superior manner every day. Perhaps this is just an obvious sign they are jealous of her, or perhaps they are only talking to her out of pity: Sarah is more than a bit disheveled and doesn't give a flip about appearances, and why should she? Her marriage is pretty much dead and the only person she sees during the day is Lucy. While the other gals are in full hair and make-up, heels, and perfect pressed little dresses, Sarah goes the comfortable route in shapeless overalls.
They recoil in horror as Sarah fumbles futilely for her daughter's non-existent snack; trying desperately to save face in front of the group as they judgingly produce nutritious treats for their perfect "little children" from the bowels of their overly-priced designer bags. They viciously gossip about the neighborhood's newest addition, Ronnie: a convicted sex offender freshly released from prison (the amazing former child actor Jackie Earle Haley).
These scenes at the park (the park is apparently the hub of all socio-political action in the land of the bourgeoisie), in which the humiliating suburban hassle gets inflicted on Sarah relentlessly by this group of harpies stand out, mainly because of the highlighting of the gossipy, demeaning behavior of the bored and unfulfilled yuppie set. These patronizing women are cinematic ice queen cousins to women like Annette Bening's Carolyn Burnham from American Beauty or Mary Tyler Moore's Beth Jarret from Ordinary People: spoiled, repressed, and filled with venom. The displaced Sarah can't relate to their malaise. She believes she is much different from them.
When "the Prom King" (stay-at-home dad Brad, played by Patrick Wilson) starts frequenting the girls' territory with his son, the fearless Sarah decides to shock the other women by actually speaking to the handsome father. Turns out Brad's life is not as dreamy as he'd like it to be: even though he is married to the outrageously beautiful documentary filmmaker Kathy (the outrageously beautiful Jennifer Connelly), with whom he has a son, Aaron; Brad has failed the bar exam twice and would rather sit and watch teenage boys skateboarding than study for his third and final attempt at the test.
Fallen cop turned vigilante Larry (the fierce Noah Emmerich) ropes Brad into a secret league of brutish nighttime football players, in addition to forcing him to aid in the neighborhood crusade against Ronnie, who is still a mere specter in the film at this point; he's just whispered hatefully about.
Brad longs to re-capture his macho youth. His fire, it seems, was snuffed out by settling down in the suburbs. Taking over a traditionally female role, as Kathy becomes the family's breadwinner, Brad becomes just another version of a bored suburban housewife himself. Little Children seems to say that only stupid people are content with that sort of existence. Brad and Sarah are both very educated people; so naturally, they begin to gravitate towards one another. Eventually, they embark on a dangerous, erotic affair, complete with some raw, realistic sex scenes between the two brave actors.
Forty-five minutes into the film, as Brad and Sarah begin to flaunt their tawdriness all over town, the character of Ronnie makes his appearance into the film, looking every bit the creepy boogie man pedophile that every parent has nightmares about. He is pale and sickly looking, almost transparent; curiously, he resembles bloodsucker Max Shreck in Nosferatu.
The far-from discrete Brad and Sarah have a standing date to meet every day at the community pool. On a bright, hot day when all of the kids and parents are cooling off in the pool, the ridiculously-attired Ronnie (complete with goggles and flippers), struts foolishly into the swimming pool and the camera dives disturbingly down into the water with him, as he creepily, secretly watches the kids moving in slow motion underwater.
It is only a matter of time before he is spotted by the frantic mob of parents; who resemble the villagers who chase after the monster in Frankenstein with torches and a pack of rabid zombies. They openly display the kind of cruelty that leads to trouble. It's also only a matter of time before Ronnie is the only one left in the pool. The police arrive within what seems like seconds to take the sex offender away from the kids.
What unfolds in the film's second half is a complex, meditative drama that offers some biting insights on the art routine. The film deftly explores the everyday perversions of those who we think are the most normal (Winslet catching her cuckolded, mysterious husband masturbating in his home office is one of the funniest, most awkward scenes in a recent film). Despite the undercurrent of genuinely funny cynicism running through its acid narration, Little Children still remains a true tragedy at heart; and a tightly-wound, emotionally suspenseful one at that.
At its core, the film is about mothers and their deep, formative bonds with their children. Sarah is jealous of the super-mommy gang, but she doesn't really want to put much effort into her relationship with Lucy; she's more interested in escaping her duties into her fantasy world with Brad. Ronnie lives with his fiercely devoted, frail mother May (a scene-stealing Phyllis Somerville); a tough old neighborhood stalwart who believes her son to be innocent as she excitedly sets up a personal ad date for him. Aaron is constantly wearing a jester's cap around Brad, but takes it off as soon as his beloved mom Kathy gets home from work.
Each mother in Little Children is able to put a fresh spin on the theme of things not turning out quite the way one might have pictured, and each finds a way of coping and soldiering on. Tough senior citizen May is forced to physically defend her adult son from bullies in her own home, while Kathy is quietly more enamored of her job and son than she is of her clearly depressed husband. Sarah turns out to be almost as sad as the rest of them: she cruelly ignores her daughter to imagine a life with Brad. As the film builds to a breathtaking climax, she is seen in the dark park, late at night, alone with Lucy; waiting for a romantic getaway that is never going to happen.
Winslet's skillful handling of these almost wordless scenes is masterful in what she is able to convey through her eyes: Sarah is going to be abruptly thrown right back into her boring old routine come early morning, like all that transpired before had never happened. It is a vague ending (complete with one shocking Shakespearean-level catharsis), and Field leaves a lot of hanging plots' resolutions up to his viewers; who should easily be able to put the pieces together thanks to the cast's lived-in, seamless performances and Field & Perrota's lean, eloquent script.
Following the success of 2001's critical darling In the Bedroom, Field proves again that he has a gift for capturing, strikingly, the complexities of small town melancholy. Little Children also demonstrates his clear gift and affinity for the art of guiding his actors to giving gloriously quiet, devastating performances. Sissy Space, Marisa Tomei, and Tom Wilkinson were all rewarded with Oscar nominations for their work in In the Bedroom; while Haley and Winslet were nominated for their work here--Winslet earning her fifth career nomination.
From the smallest supporting role, to the powerhouse leads, Field imbues each character with soul and flavor; as he does with every other technical detail of the film. His eye for the minutiae of the everyday is impeccable.
Movie Review: A very subtle explosion of emotions and circumstance that prove themselves very close to home...
Summary: 5 Stars
When I first read Tom Perrotta's novel of the same name I was blown away with the power within subtlety. The novel effortlessly takes you through suburban life and teaches valuable lessons about ourselves that, if left to the untrained eye, we might miss. When sitting down to watch this movie I was hit with mixed reviews, some lauding, some hating, others somewhere in the middle and so honestly I didn't know what to expect. The lady at the check out line at the movie store told me point blank that this movie was a horrible waste of time and so I kindly told her that I'd make that decision for myself. I strongly disagree with her, so much so that I'm willing to argue this to be the finest film of this past year with anyone who dares to tango. Todd Field brilliantly captures the very essence of Perrotta's novel and delivers with flying colors. Yes, as some have already mentioned including critics, the film adaptation does trim down some of the side plots like those including Sarah's husband Richard and Larry the obsessed cop, but it still manages to bring to life the vision that Perrotta created.
The film follows an affair that sparks up between Sarah, played effortlessly by the brilliance that is Kate Winslet, and Brad, played by breakout star Patrick Wilson. The two of them make for an unlikely pair. Sarah is not your typical suburban mother. She's reserved, intelligent, earthy and plain, and Brad is your typical jock, good looking, popular and way out of her league. But what makes their relationship so brilliant is that they are both missing something in their lives that the other can effortlessly fill. Sarah needs a man that shows an interest in her and in her daughter, someone to make her feel pretty and needed. Brad needs a woman that is less concerned with success and more concerned with happiness and that is willing to put his needs above her own. Sarah's husband Richard is more interested in women he finds online and Brad's wife Kathy, played brilliantly by Jennifer Connelly, may be beautiful but she lacks interest in her what her husband really wants, always pushing him to complete a bar exam he isn't even sure he ever really wanted to pass in the first place.
Their affair starts slowly. They meet in a park and share a kiss that was meant to mean nothing but that stirred a fire in both of them. Brad visits the playground everyday hoping to find Sarah but she's not there. Eventually, though, they meet again at the local pool where they begin their life away from home, living as a couple in complete comforts with one another, innocent and sweet and well intentioned. They make each other feel good without pushing the envelope and feeling guilty. That is until one rainy afternoon when they make love while their children sleep and its forms a bond within them they can't break. Todd Field brilliantly paints Sarah and Brad's relationship as Perrotta intentioned. The little children spoken of in the title, while ultimately boiling down to the little ones who would control their end decisions, in a way refer to the two main characters and their actions toward one another. Their relationship is one made in haste, in complete and utter thoughtlessness, one made without regard for those around them but, much like a child, made out of pure selfish motive. The way they are shown interacting with one another, Sarah's brilliant reaction to Brad's winning the football game, all show the viewer that this relationship was not one out of deep rooted love but one made out of surface lust and excitement. Sarah and Brad are back in high school experiencing that wonderful feeling for the first time and no one can take that away from them.
Both Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson brilliantly capture these two lovers and effortlessly captivate their audience and dominate this picture, but there are a few supporting players that deserve recognition. Jackie Earle Haley, who scored an Oscar nomination alongside Winslet for his role, really earns our respect and admiration. Tackling a very difficult role he was able to invest enough sympathy and almost pathetic emotion into his very unlikable character without hesitating one bit to give us a blunt and straightforward performance. He makes Ronny, convicted pedophile and neighborhood felon, a real person and not a stock villain, and that is a hard feat to accomplish. Phyllis Somerville, who plays Ronny's over-protective mother, also does a brilliant job with breathing life and realistic compassion into her character. Jennifer Connelly also blew me away with her subtle yet strong performance. It's a performance that reminds me in ways of Michelle Williams' brilliance in last years `Brokeback Mountain'. She was strong in a very silent and repressed sort of way, adding layers to her character with the look in her eyes and Connelly brilliantly makes herself heard without saying much at all. The dinner scene is a prime example of her dominating a scene with the look on her face.
There are a few drawbacks to the film, a major one being Noah Emmerich's corny and over-acted portrayal of Larry, the ex-cop with a personal conviction to push Ronny out of his town. He's sorely miscast in a role that if given to the right actor and fleshed out as he was in the book could have been the standout performance but was instead trimmed back and given to an amateur to handle. Emmerich doesn't even look the part, but that's for another discussion. Aside from Emmerich my only problem with the film, if you can call it that, was that it let a few side plots go with just a passing glance, not really fleshing them out as they could have been. That's understandable since this would have then turned out to be a much longer movie than ideal, but being such a huge fan of the novel I would have liked to see a few things explained a little better. Those few drawbacks are more than made up for though and so may not even bare repeating, but I figured I should be honest. Overall this is a very emotionally moving and rewarding movie experience, delving deep into the heart of human emotion in way that we may not even understand. This is not a blunt and intrusive work of art made to push the envelope and prove a point in a way that's alarming or even distasteful. It's meant to make the viewer think almost subconsciously, putting the pieces together and finding that they do fit and that this does make a lot more sense then we could have ever imagined, and it does, believe me, it does!
Movie Review: thought provoking
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie definitely made me think. The title "Little Children" is so appropriate as the name of the movie depicts a solid theme that permeates the entire movie.
Just don't watch it with "little children" or any children, for it is made for adults. I found this movie to be well acted, and well made.
The "little children" POINTS that I can see in this movie:
1) The movie cleverly starts out in the McGorvey house, with Ronnie
(the town's child sex offender who exposed himself to a minor) and
his devoted, doting mother, May McGorvey. An elderly woman, May has
all kinds of collectibles in her home--her various clocks are all
ticking away in unison as if to represent that something is going to
happen, something onimous or serious that time will only tell.
She also has on disply her Hummel collection of little, cute
figurine children (as her son, Ronnie, is perversely fixated on the
real thing).
Also May treats Ronnie like he was still her little boy. He calls
her "Mommy" and she calls him "Ronnie". She takes him into her
house, cooks and cleans for him (he never needs to wash a dish),
protects him from the harassing ex-cop (Larry), and even sets up
dates for Ronnie to go on so someone will one day care for her
little boy.
2) Sarah (Kate Winslett), a young wife, and mother of young Lucy, goes
regularly to the local playground with 3 so-called women friends and
their little children.
These women are hypocritcal, judgmental, boring, and unappealing
peers to Sarah. Eventually, they become angry with Sarah and shun
her when she beomes intimate with a local stay-at-home father, Brad
(Patrick Wilson), who is often seen at the same playground. Calling
him "the Prom King", these other mothers fantasize over him,
preferring the mystery of him from afar (as they dare won't approach
him for fear of not being properly brushed and made up). I could see
why Sarah wants to separate herself from them. They need a good
reality check.
Giddy over this guy, like girlish women, one of the mothers even
dares Sarah to get the Prom King's phone number. In turn, Sarah goes
a couple steps further with this bet, sparking an odd, little
encounter that will soon mold itself into a relationship between
the two. Sarah's boldness gives her some triumph as she delights in
seeing the women scatter off to the wind like scared, little girls,
their forbidden fantasies spelled out before there eyes.
3) There are the little children of Sarah,(Lucy), and Brad,(Aaron),
innocently caught up in the entanglement.
4) There is Brad's wife, Kathy, who treats Brad more like a little son
than a wife. She earns the money in the family, so she controls the
finances. She even decides if Brad can have a sell phone and
questions his need to subscribe to a few magazines. It is her
decision, not really his own heart, that sends him off to the
library to study for the bar exam. She also wishes for her adorable,
little boy to sleep in the middle of his parents, so sex is not very
available to Brad.
5) Sarah's husband, Richard, "must" give into his own off-the-wall
fantasies, without the consideration of adult restraint or
consequences. He stumbles upon the internet porn site of "Slutty
Kay", acting out in secret what he wished he could do for real.
Among other kinky things, Slutty Kay loves to dress up like a
provocative, little girl with pigtails and balloons.
6) Larry, the ex-cop, loves to push people around. He is a one-man
committee for concerned parents (because Ronnie is in too close of a
proximity to children for anyone's liking). Ronnie is very messed
up, but like the bully that May McGorvey calls Larry, he
constantly harasses Ronnie, going too far. He also acts like a big
baby when things don't go his way. When Larry is feeling bad about
himself, he will soon direct himself to the McGorvey house to raise
more hell.
One thing that haunts Larry is that he mistakenly shot a teenage boy
while on duty as a policeman.
7) Sarah finds out that her life is not what it should be. College
educated, she now feels like she is playing house to her family
as a restless wife and mother. And life with Brad becomes unreal to
her also, only an unfulfilled fantasy life. She buys into believing
that someone else can rescue her from her unhappy life.
Nevertheless, she makes a choice that will only get more and more
complicated.
8) Brad cannot pass the bar exam, failing twice. He is coaxed by his
wife to study again for it, but he cannot seem to focus. He rather
hang outside the library and watch some teenage skate boarders,
feeling like an outsider to them, yet longing for their
acceptance. "I must have been one of them", he thinks to himself.
Little doe he know that he is trying to reclaim his lost youth.
Feeling inferior to his wife, Sarah puts him on a false
pedestal, and he feels good again.
Brad is irresponsible, not a man of integrity. More like a little
boy, he should not be counted on.
Movie Review: When the Masks of Children Come Off...
Summary: 5 Stars
In spite of its three Academy Award nominations, I had not heard of this movie, came across it merely by browsing the shelves at my neighborhood video store. Since I've been seeing quite a few Kate Winslet movies of late, most of which have ranged from interesting to impressive, I rented the movie on the strength of her name. Good decision. "Little Children" at this point ranks, in my mind, as Winslet's best performance to date.
The various intertwining plots of this movie, narrated with wonderful lines from a Tom Perotta novel, would ordinarily have disturbed me if not inclined me to leave it on the shelf. And it *was* disturbing. Again and again, it made me cringe, and wince, and fidget, and roll my eyes, and sigh with exasperation. But keep watching. These are the "little children" (immature adults without control over their adolescent whims and whines) of a wealthier suburbia, including adulterous couples, cooling and troubled marriages, neglected but well adorned children, bored wives, fantasy-ridden husbands, porn-addicted executives, and the neighborhood pedophile living with Mommy, as he calls her, because who else would have him?
Opening on a gated playground scene with mothers seated on a bench, only Winslet's character, Sarah Pierce, on a separate bench, watching their children at play, a young father (Patrick Wilson) with stroller enters the grounds - and the heads of the wives turn en masse. Prom King, they call him, and the fantasies of the bored wives quickly surround the pleasant young father as he plays with his little son at a distance. Nothing more desirable than a man playing with his child... only Sarah can hardly bear the cheap chatter of the women, and more to break it up than out of interest in the Prom King, she approaches him, gets his phone number on a dare, goes in for a hug to scandalize, and then, caught up in the tease of the horrified other mothers, lands a sensual kiss on the stranger.
And onward and upward and hotter from there we go.
The trigger for Sarah to unleash an affair, however, is not the kiss (although he, the recipient, can't stop thinking about it, even as he contemplates the cold superiority of his businesswoman wife who treats him more like a child than a husband - an interesting reversal of roles), but the discovery of her husband at home heaving and panting in front of a computer screen filled with a virtual stripping woman. Sarah is filled with disgust, her respect for her husband disintegrates, and when she searches and finds a wastebasket beneath the computer filled with stiffened tissues, she realizes she has encountered an ongoing addiction. Rather than confront her husband, she represses her disgust and unhappiness, as too many women do in similar situations, and purchases instead a scarlet red bathing suit in order to feel desirable again and heads to the neighborhood pool where the Prom King hangs out every summer afternoon. What pretends to be a new friendship soon is a full-blown affair.
An interesting moment between the two takes place when Sarah asks her new lover if his wife is pretty. Oh yes, drop dead gorgeous, he tosses off his shrugging appraisal, but "beauty is highly overrated," he says, oblivious to the insult he has just paid his new lover, and as the narrator inserts - it takes a great kind of arrogance in one's own beauty to be so disparaging of another. But however tossed off, his comment reveals a deeper truth: the two are extraordinarily compatible and similar in their family torments and the beating each has sustained on their marital ego.
Throughout this development of an affair, other sideline stories and characters evolve. There is the story of a pedophile (Jackie Earle Haley) and his mother (Phyllis Somerville), his deep attachment and dependence on her, the only human being who still cares about him, even as his behavior continues, sending the neighborhood into gyrations of horror and fear. There is the story of the bully cop (Noah Emmerich), just this side of being a criminal himself, who deteriotes into a vigilante chasing the pedophile, causing far more harm than good. And there are many rich and memorable scenes, which include a gathering of elderly neighborhood women with a few younger ones for spice, discussing the novel, Gustave Flaubert's riotous "Madame Bovary." There is the neighborhood's men's football team, and the portrayal of their often clumsy male bonding and destructive competition. Another winning scene has the cheated-upon wife, played by Jennifer Connelly, who mostly blends into background for other characters, observing a conversation between her husband and neighbor Sarah. As perhaps only women can, she understands from the most casual exchange between the two that there is far more intimacy between them than a man and woman friend should share. There is no raucous fireworks revelation of the affair, simply a silent observation, and a woman's instinct. She knows. Nor does she tell him that she knows. Again, like most women, she holds her knowledge inside, to quietly observe and await his hitting his own wall.
For all its moments of discomfort, as so many of our hidden life stories and opened closet doors may cause, this entire story is exquisitely developed, with top level acting, nuanced dialogue, and meaning that unfolds upon even deeper meaning when the layers of masks humanity wears come off. The story concludes with a surprising twist that is also highly satisfying, yet no more "pretty" than life usually is. Not even in a wealthy corner of suburbia.
Movie Review: You should never have children until you stop being one yourself
Summary: 5 Stars
The title of "Little Children" is obviously ironic since the young adults who make up the film's main characters are clearly being characterized as such by novelist Tom Perrotta. The author's judgments are of such importance to the telling ot the tale that director Todd Field, who did the screenplay with Perrotta, uses a narrator (Will Lyman, narrator of numerous PBS "NOVA" and "Frontline") to both express the inner thoughts of silent characters and to pass additional judgments. I was not especially enamored of this approach, which substitutes telling for showing at several points, but the touches of sardonic wit eventually won me over. However, the same cannot be said for most of the characters, which is actually a key part of the story.
Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet) takes her daughter to the local suburban playground each day, where she listens to the gossip of the other young mothers, who have two primary topics. The first is the stay-at-home dad, Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson), who has recently returned after a mysterious absence to show up at the playground with his young son. They call him the "Prom King," and when one of them bets Sarah $5 that she cannot gets the guy's phone number, Sarah gets a lot more than that. The second omnipresent topic is the release from prison of a pedophile, Ronnie J. McGorvey (Jackie Earle Haley), who has moved into the neighborhood to live with his mother, May (Phyllis Somerville). Ronnie exposed himself to a young girl and ex-cop Larry Hedges (Noah Emmerich) has taken it upon himself to do more than just put up posters all over town warning parents about the sexual predator living in the neighborhood.
It is the reaction of the neighbors to Ronnie that first clues us in that this slice of suburbia is just another Peyton Place and that these characters are all hypocrites, because the hysterical reaction strikes me as just such overkill. If this is what they do to somebody who exposes himself, then you have to wonder what they would consider appropriate for someone guilty of more wretched molestation. When Ronnie finally appears there is clearly evidence that he has not changed, just as everybody fears, but there is also a scene that I think makes it equally clear Ronnie wants to be seen and not to touch. This only serves to reinforce the idea that these other characters should not be throwing stones, let alone judging others, and that this collision of characters is not going to end well.
Brad is married to Kathy (Jennifer Connelly), who is preoccupied with her career as a documentary film making and blithely unaware of what she is doing to her husband by suggesting he does not really "need" his magazine subscriptions. Meanwhile, Sarah's husband, Richard (Gregg Edelman), has become smitten with an Internet sex site. With their spouses adding to the inevitability of their affair, Brad and Sarah attempt to fill up the voids in their lives, while their neighbors continue to pass judgment on each other. Mary Ann (Mary B. McCann) is clearly the most judgmental of the playground mothers, although her character is apparently not as prominent as she is in the novel. What is important is that the characters are so busy passing judgments on each other they remain oblivious to their own failings until they are forcibly confronted by them.
Winslet and Haley were Oscar nominated for their roles, but their fine performances do not stand out notably so in this ensemble piece, where I found Sommerville and Emmerich to be equally strong. In the wake of the success of "Pulp Fiction" there were a whole slew of movies that scrambled up their chronological narratives in imitations of Quentin Tarrantino's film. It seems that the Oscar winning film "Crash" is becoming a similar source of emulation with all of these films that offer a fateful collision of characters with their varying degrees of separation (Not that "Crash" was the first film to do this sort of thing but rather than it has become the cinematic reference point for that particular approach). I wondered how "Babel" would have done at the Academy Awards if it did not seem so "Crash"-like, and was surprised by the final reel to discover that "Little Children" was even more like Paul Haggis's film. You regard for this similarity might be a stronger indicator of your predisposition for or against this particular film.
However, I also found myself being remind of "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan." I have always wondered why the super-intelligent Khan would start quoting Ahab from "Moby Dick," seemingly embracing the whole idea of self-destructive obsession. In "Little Children" Sarah sits in on a neighborhood book club that has read "Madame Bovary," and finds herself identifying with Emma's plight, even though the group has explicitly talked about the character's suicide. Maybe if she had finished her dissertation she would know better, but Sarah is obviously trying to ignore the obvious and painful parallels. I can understand wanting to be with Emma Bovary (e.g., Woody Allen's "The Kugelmass Episode"), or discovering that your situation is precariously similar (e.g., Kate Chopin's "The Awakening"), but actively embracing such a fate is quite disconcerting. That is probably why I found the resolution of this 2006 film to be somewhat refreshing in that it did not play out exactly as anticipated.