Little Children

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Director Todd Field

Field with writer Tom Perrotta

Tom Perrotta

Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson

LITTLE CHILDREN         A-                                                                                                       USA  (137 mi)  2006  ‘Scope  d: Todd Field

After all, what was adult life but one moment of weakness piled on top of another?  Most people just fell in line like obedient little children, doing exactly what society expected of them at any given moment, all the while pretending that they’d actually made some sort of choice.  —Little Children, by Tom Perrotta, 2004

A small understated gem of a film whose bold discomforting detachment and occasional mocking tone belies its aim to cut through the superficiality that strangely touches on our Puritan interests as a society, where we all have to huddle together in mass and feel like we’re cut from the same cloth, where everyone obviously must agree with us, as there’s simply no other point of view.  This image of pointing inwards toward ourselves becomes a small town portrait of a democratized America which has all but forgotten the meaning of the word freedom.  Unraveling like an icy and occasionally condescending fairy tale, this slumbering giant of a nation is portrayed with a sobering vision that at times resembles the unpleasant, slightly mischievous sarcasm of von Trier’s DOGVILLE (2003), with an omniscient narrator (Will Lyman) who reads his lines as if out of a book, accentuating the literary roots, routinely interrupting the story and intruding into the lives of the characters, effectively distancing us by placing the narrative in the immediate past, while at the same time offering vivid insight into their inner experiences.  Sounding oddly detached and outside the realm of the characters he’s commenting upon, this is an oddly oriented film that reaches the depths of our emotions with what appears to be “wrong” characters, as it certainly catches us by surprise when a man’s voice starts voicing the innermost thoughts of a female character, “Smiling politely to mask a familiar feeling of desperation, Sarah reminded herself to think like an anthropologist.  She was a researcher studying the behavior of typical suburban women.  She was not a typical suburban woman herself.”  Even the trailer is impressive, beautifully constructed and masterfully edited, Little Children - Trailer YouTube (1:42), envisioning the film as a train wreck, set to a ticking clock, heightening the anticipation of what we’re about to see.  Filmed mostly in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island, the film is shot in Scope on Super 35mm by Antonio Calvache in a more adventurous manner than In the Bedroom, expressing more visual elegance, taking advantage of more diverse techniques and stylistic devices, perhaps envisioned by the director, who is himself an avid photographer.  This film, along with Spike Lee’s 25th Hour (2002), may be the two best films exploring the significantly altered post 9/11 world, cryptically asking what exactly is meant by Homeland Security?  Despite a larger budget, the film retains its small-scale approach, and was barely seen in theaters, only earning about half what it cost to make this film, yet this is a superbly written story, adapted by Field working together with author Tom Perrotta from his 2004 novel, which was set in the summer of 2001, while Field sets the film after 9/11, bringing elements that were not in the novel into the film.  Capturing the hilarious yet nauseatingly mundane rhythms of daily routine that pointedly challenge our growing complacency, this literally scolds our preconceived notions as being without foresight or merit, making us go back to the drawing board and ask ourselves what kind of a world do we wish to live in, and what part are we going to play in it?  In her groundbreaking 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan examined the homemaker role of women in the drab suburbs, cut-off from the energy of the real world, feeling hopelessly trapped and depressed that they are stuck in a suburban wasteland, opening the door for postwar feminism, a theme embraced by this film.  Using a novelistic structure that references Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, a metaphor for the suffocation of our now over-privileged souls, Our Town (1940) returns as a similarly repressed, but now straight-jacketed nation whose values are under siege.             

Arguably Field’s most divisive film, this lurid exposure of the underside of the American Dream displays a pervasive tone of chronic dissatisfaction infecting this suburban utopia, in essence a subversive yet literary take that remains morally murky without political overkill, with a degree of subtlety that is fascinating throughout, utilizing superb, open-ended storytelling and the development of believable, well-crafted characters, none of whom are particularly likeable, filled with loneliness and desperation.  Introduced by the acerbic words of the narrator, Kate Winslet once again finds herself immersed in a powerful role as Sarah, the Madame Bovary of the neighborhood whose denial of desired passion leads her to entertain the unorthodox position that adultery is a step towards liberation, as she refuses to accept the suffocation of a loveless marriage that has all but sapped her inner spirit and left her clearly a stranger to herself.  Practicing the same rituals as all the other middle class housewives, she’s a stay-at-home mom spending “quality time” with her daughter Lucy (Sadie Goldstein) every day, but barely recognizes herself anymore.  In the children’s park, she discovers another intriguing character, Patrick Wilson is Brad, the All American guy, a stay-at-home dad caring for his own infant son, labeled the Prom King by a trio of other stay-at-home moms in the park hovering over their children, like mother hawks, budding soccer moms who practice protection through elicit yet thoroughly judgmental and stiflingly intolerant views, who are seen as a Greek chorus suspicious of anything different or out of the ordinary, a cauldron of Salem witch trial rumors and guilt by association, Kate Winslet - Little Children YouTube (1:43).  Brad is married to the beautiful but over-controlling Kathy (Jennifer Connolly), the model wife who is emotionally cold, with no interest whatsoever in sex, ever vigilant with the family budget, as she monitors his magazine subscriptions and questions his need for a cell phone.  Unable to live up to her perfectionist expectations, his lack of ambition is staggering, as he’s been unable to pass the bar exams since finishing law school, expressing little interest, literally blowing them off, clinging to the last vestiges of youth, repressing his own pent-up inner desires, while discovering he’s at an emotional standstill.  Sarah is a former literature PhD candidate turned housewife, a beleaguered loner trapped in a bad marriage and a life of ostentatious privilege, finding herself alienated and off-balance, shackled by the intellectually unstimulating role of suburban motherhood, often seen lost in thought, and while she devotes time to her daughter each day, she lacks any connection, and is absent-mindedly negligent and lackadaisical, demonstrating questionable parenting skills.  In Brad and Sarah, we find the non-breadwinners of their marriages, each struggling with feelings of inadequacy and failure, who defer to the dominant but thoroughly flawed characteristics of their more economically ambitious partners, the ones “society” would label as the most responsible.  In this hole or spiritual pit that they have allowed themselves to fall into, there is an extraordinary urge to try something else, to take a risk, to give themselves another opportunity to rediscover who they are and what they believe in.  This film gives them that chance through romantic afternoon interludes which may be more an open act of rebellion than love, but it appears to provide them a catalyst for growth, Little Children - Sara & Brad Kissing Scene | Kate Winslet Patrick Wilson YouTube (1:07).       

At some point during an innocuous dinner invitation, Kathy figures out that Sarah is more than a playground friend, yet rather than be angry, she seems more insulted that he would choose someone less glamorous than her, Little Children (2006) - Dinner Scene YouTube (1:58).  Nonetheless, she brings her mother (Catherine Wolf) into the home to follow her husband’s every move, literally smothering any lingering possibilities.  Desperately trying to break out of the apparently prescribed paths, they take refuge in relationships that have no future, expressing a curious way of looking into the human psyche, discovering a potpourri of chronic discontent lurking in the pristine safety of America’s backyards.  Within this community conflict, a variation of television’s Desperate Housewives (2004-2012), the protection of children is a moral rule that is thrown around in the most hostile and despicable manner, where anything different, or not perfect, is considered a threat.  Throw into this mix a pedophile, Ronnie (simply an amazing performance by Jackie Earle Haley who steals the picture after an absence of 13 years in the industry), a convicted sex offender struggling with his psychosexual disorder, recently released from serving his prison term, he becomes synonymous with evil lurking right under their noses, present in the most familiar places, living at home with his mother, the still loving and supportive Phyllis Sommerville, right in the heart of the community.  Her home is decorated with rows of carefully assembled bric-a-brac of porcelain “little children,” Hummel figurines, alongside chiming clocks, exhibiting a kind of perfection that Ronnie can never live up to, with his mother continually coddling him like an infant, the only person who has ever treated him with tenderness and affection, yet in her eyes he remains that same innocent child that he was when he was born, immune to his transgressions.  In suburbia, the pedophile is the local equivalent of al-Qaeda, an extension of the FRANKENSTEIN (1931) movies with an agitated mob carrying torches, shovels, and pitchforks chasing a monster through the forests, with Ronnie becoming the scapegoat for all the hidden crimes of the community, as there are posters with his face everywhere sending disturbing warnings, where moral order can only be established with a blistering purge of his sins, yet this highly public moral crusade serves as a distraction from any self-examination of society’s own sins.  There’s a scene on a hot summer day where Ronnie decides to go swimming in the public pool that is nothing less than hair-raising, with all the moms screaming in unison for their kids to get out of the pool, as if there was a shark in the waters, isolating the offending party, obsessed with the threat he poses, Little Children - Pool YouTube (4:04), yet it perfectly expresses the essence of an overzealous, moral crusade hysteria that is still at play in our society, bearing a strange resemblance to the post 9/11 terrorist alert hysteria.  Making matters worse, a former cop, Larry (Noah Emmerich), who was kicked off the force for accidentally shooting a kid in a shopping mall, goes on a one man rampage to alert the neighborhood of this danger in their midst, posting photos of the man that dominate the urban landscape, continually hounding and harassing him at his home, never giving it a rest, treating this man like vermin that needs to be eradicated, yet his exploitive vendetta hides his own inadequacies and personal failings.  Rather than provide some hair-raising finale, the film instead moves quietly into the night, extinguishing the flames of desire, open rebellion, and insurrection, as aroused emotions simply subside into the quiet of the darkness, Little Children (2006 Todd Field) YouTube (4:58).   

After completing In the Bedroom (2001), Field attempted to pursue the rights to the landmark 1961 Richard Yates’ novel Revolutionary Road, which was eventually made by Kate Winslet’s husband at the time, Sam Mendes, Revolutionary Road (2008), an examination of the middle class flight to the suburbs in the 1950’s, finding similarities in the works of Tom Perrotta, who was famous for scripting Alexander Payne’s Election (1999), which elevated the satire of the novel, while also discovering his more recent novel, Little Children, another comic work with dark elements, a blend of satire and psychological realism, something of a critique of right-wing media’s relentless campaign to keep people in constant fear, perpetuating a post 9/11 age of anxiety.  Altering the tone of the book through the use of a narrator, the film provides a counterpoint that isn’t there in the novel, speaking over the action, voicing various points of view through a literary context, dissecting the idea of a suburban utopia which is, at heart, a land of exclusion and deep-seeded ostracism, making the material darker and more horrifying, with horror lurking behind the façade of suburban humanism.  Field deftly guides his characters through a maze of interdependencies, unfulfilled desires and dreams, aided by an observant camera and a dreamy sound design, where the sound of a passing train, repeated throughout the film, dictates escape, standing in for another world that none of the characters are able to traverse.  As if on a merry-go-round, they all come back and forth into view, again and again, where there is no clear main character, but a series of characters where the interest is evenly distributed, though Brad and Sarah are the main pair anchoring the story, where one must acknowledge that Winslet’s impulsive, private rebellion is simply intoxicating to witness, a startling reminder of her astonishing debut in Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures (1994).  There is a smug tone of deluded self-centeredness, with suggestions that an entire generation, the Little Children of the title, has abdicated their responsibilities in a reckless pursuit of satisfaction, igniting a reactionary wave of hypocrisy to fill the void, a rather sickening part of the American culture that this film relentlessly satirizes, with heavy doses of outrageous humor cleverly interjected before taking a more somber turn at the end.  While it’s conceivable that the final outcome may feel a bit contrived, it’s also a mastery of parallel editing, a beautifully integrated fantasia of collective retribution, which doesn’t in any way diminish the unusual character development or detract from the originality of the material.  Needless to say, this is a complicated work highlighting the flawed and damaged among us, from the pillars of our society, the ones who would admit no wrong, the zealously righteous who become a walking contagious disease that contaminates the very core of our lives with a reeking hypocrisy, to our own weak-kneed response to the abhorrent, swirling out-of-control moral order that is imposed upon us, where it’s easier to do nothing, say nothing, feel nothing, and allow this feeling of benign resignation to blight our withered souls, to become transformed into something meaningless and unrecognizable.  This dramatically effective work purges the obvious from the artificial surface and allows us to feel something lurking underneath that may be completely foreign to us.  Taking a page out of the innocent children’s playground in Kurosawa’s IKIRU (1952), we are left with an empty swing in a dark park at night, connected in some way to all the central characters, with no real resolution to any of the conflicts, yet we’re rediscovering within ourselves the almost completely forgotten human attribute of empathy.   

Super 8

SUPER 8                     B

USA  (112 mi)  2011  ‘Scope  d:  J.J. Abrams

Much like this director paid tribute to the Star Trek TV era, especially good at catching the various personality traits of the major players, this film pays tribute to the era of Spielberg, including several of his notable movies.  Again, Abrams does some things extremely well, like catch the E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982) innocent mood of the kids who continually hang out together with no adult supervision, eventually tracing the presence of an alien presence in the community while also establishing a great build up of suspense for the horrible presence of an unseen monster in JAWS (1975), not to mention the U.S. military creating a diversionary catastrophe from CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977) which sends the local community into mass hysteria while covering up their real mission, which remains top secret.  While there is also a shared love for big box-office special effects, like Abrams last film, there is an over-reliance on loud explosions, as if this is the only way to cause adrenaline rushes, yet this kind of destructive mayhem exists throughout the film, led by Noah Emmerich, perennial bad guy who heads the secret Air Force unit, a guy who will stop at nothing in supposedly tracking down public enemy number one, their top secret monster they've been keeping under wraps that is suddenly missing and unleashed on the public, refusing to share basic information, even as it destroys communities and ravages the countryside.  Unlike Spielberg, this has a darker menace throughout, as there are constant images of death, demolition, and destruction, where these kids are running through the streets alone trying to avoid getting killed, which is a far cry from being caught by their parents for doing something they’re not allowed.  Like BAMBI (1942), the first Disney film to kill off a helpless fawn’s mother, the audience quickly discovers that Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney with a slight Ralph Macchio resemblance), the lead child’s mother has also been killed, leaving him alone with his distant and self-absorbed father, Kyle Chandler as the Sheriff’s Deputy, a man caught up in the town’s hysteria with no answers to quell the maddening voices. 

Set in 1979, the film starts out innocently enough with a group of middle school kids led by Riley Griffiths as Charles, who are trying to make a special effects Super 8 zombie movie to enter into a local film contest, though they feel compelled to strain for greater effects, since 15 and 16-year olds will also be competing.  Sneaking out at night, they meet at the railroad tracks, including the presence of Elle Fanning as Alice, the cute girl that the boys think would never talk with them, surprising them all with her own rebellious streak.  Much like Drew Barrymore in E.T., Fanning is a joy to watch, showing maturity beyond her years, not to mention a charming talent in front of a camera, where despite playing a ghoulish zombie, her beguiling presence unsettles the boys who have been best friends for years.  As if to accentuate this imbalance, they witness a horrible train accident, where a train carrying Air Force top secret materials gets derailed in spectacular fashion, where they each defy death and somehow survive while unknowingly capturing the event on film, making their escape before anyone is detected, vowing to keep it a secret, as they believe something horrible will track down their families.  First animals go missing, then appliances strangely disappear, entire car engines are pulled out of cars before people start mysteriously disappearing as well, including the sheriff, where only weird noises can be heard in the dark before a violent attack of some kind snatches its prey.  This leaves Joe’s father in charge of these strange inexplicable random events, but the military finds his incessant questioning curiously disturbing, as if this was somehow preventing them from carrying out their mission.  Unfortunately the warped world of the adults is an unpleasant contrast to the more stellar ideas and enthusiasm shown by the playfulness of the kids, who inherently trust one another, as opposed to the world of adults where suspicion and the unending use of violence reigns. 

Despite the plentiful use of special effects sequences, the best thing in the film is the smaller-world interaction of the kids, whose unique personalities add humor and intrigue to the story, where they’re a close-knit group that draws the audience in with their appeal, led by Joe, who can’t stop thinking about Alice, the real heroine of the story.  It’s impossible, by the way, not to think of Mark Borchardt from Chris Smith’s AMERICAN MOVIE (1999), striving for years to finish his low-budget zombie flick Coven, played entirely by friends and family, which is pretty much what these kids are up to as well.  But when the world around them goes crazy, with people going missing, a military presence taking over the city, and several events witnessed which defy gravity or known science, these kids, perhaps without realizing it at first, feel they are on a mission to save the world, turning this into a Mission Impossible (Abrams directed the 3rd) kind of episode where they are driven to overcome seemingly impossible obstacles, but done with a charming enjoyment and intelligent humor.  What doesn’t work, balanced against this obvious fun, is the unpleasant deviousness of the American military, even resorting to secret arrests and images of torture, all of which defy the efforts of this spirited group, where the American military imposes a larger threat of violence than the actual monster.  Granted, this film reflects the mindset of the culture in the late 70’s, where Watergate, lies about secret bombing campaigns in Cambodia, lies about Generals boosting the number of enemy combatants killed in action in order to justify more troops, and the tortuous end of the Vietnam era did contribute to a general distrust of governmental authority, which included the military.  Still the heavy handed tone of militarism gone wrong, or in the wrong hands, sends this barreling down the wrong track, undermining their own monster special effects with a montage of non-stop military explosions of death and destruction, a whirlwind of exaggerated psychotic mayhem that was never part of the original story, that only detracts from the initial innocent hilarity of making that confounding zombie movie with a cast of overeager kids, and also kills the suspense leading up to the appearance of the monster, who has unfortunately been upstaged by the way over the top, uncalculated madness of humankind.