Todd Field had been an actor for many years. He appeared as a crooner in Woody Allen's "Radio Days" and as a college buddy of Tom Cruise's character in Stanley Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut". He made his feature debut as a director with 2001's "In the Bedroom", in which a tragedy exposes the flaws in a couple's marriage. His next movie was 2006's "Little Children", about some unpleasant things going on behind the veneer of a perfect suburban life.The movie has a couple of stories going on, each loosely connected: an extramarital affair between a bored housewife (Kate Winslet) and a man (Patrick Wilson) known as a prom king, the arrival of a sex offender (Jackie Earle Haley), and a former cop (Noah Emmerich) who keeps trying to hide an ugly past. All described by an omniscient narrator.There aren't really any good guys or bad guys. There are simply people who do morally questionable things in a amoral setting. Lawrence Ferlinghetti once called suburbs something like "America's tragedy", and that's perfectly apparent here. Winslet's character's friends - if you can call them friends - are the most empty-headed people of all, while Wilson's character's wife (Jennifer Connelly) is hard-working but barely has any relationship with anyone, including her husband.One could make the argument that suburban Gothic is an overused genre. That might be the truth. Even so I recommend "Little Children". The movie makes clear why the characters do what they do. Basically, they're sick people who nonetheless have some good in them. In a way, Haley's character is the most sympathetic in the movie (even though he did one of the most unethical things).I recommend it.

I just saw the movie: "Little Children" and I must say I was very disappointed too how Brad never got caught cheating on his wife! He had an affair with Sarah for goodness sakes!!!! He has been sneaking out and going behind his wife's back and it just wasn't appropriate whatsoever for a married man with kids and a married woman having sex. Why couldn't he just be honest? Why did he have to lie and go behind his wife's back? I wish there was a scene in the movie where Brad's wife beat the hell out of him and where he got caught cheating and lying!! This was very frustrating and why this movie was garbage. This can never really happen in real life! Especially when Brad's wife started to get a little suspicious and even sense that Brad was cheating but didn't confront him or say anything about it? Made no sense!

Little Children is one of those films that essentially looks at various people's lives and tries to weave stories together in order to come to some kind of profound conclusion. Narratives of this nature are risky as when they're done wrong you can sometimes find yourself alienating your audience. Unfortunately, due to the fact that every storyline is either badly developed, ridiculous or uninteresting it did make this film a rather long and painful two hours....The idea of a 'reformed' paedophile moving into an area where lots of children are living and stirring up fear and anxiety amongst the families of those children could potentially have made for a very interesting social commentary. This was actually where I hoped that the film would have focused its attention. Sadly, for most of its running time it focused on bored suburban housewife Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet) in a loveless marriage (yawn!!!) having an affair with another married man called Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson) who has no real direction in life and to me seemed to be living in the past. It's a trite and clichéd storyline which might have been bearable if Brad and Sarah had any character to them - the problem is that they are two of the dullest characters I've seen in a film and it made me feel mildly depressed watching them for over two hours. Whilst Sarah's reasons for wanting an affair are reasonable I struggled understanding what motivated Brad to have an affair? The only thing I remember was him being annoyed about their kid sharing a bed with them... That to me would not make most men stray (particularly as they seemed happy at other times).Another thing that really wound me up when watching this film was the voice-over; it wasn't the content of the voice-over (some of it was quite insightful), but it was more the way that the voice-over was delivered. To me it was really cheesy and sounded like something you'd hear on some lame 'self-help' video. It was just ridiculous and laughable. Sarah's life mirroring that of a fictional character called Madame Bovary was also rather cheesy. We learn during the course of the film that Sarah's husband becomes addicted to porn and Sarah makes a big deal about it (understandably) and tells her husband that 'we need to talk', but then that storyline is dropped and the next time we see her husband he's sat round a dinner table at Brad's and they're all playing happy families. To me it seemed rather pointless creating that storyline and then not taking it anywhere. The acting performances were terrible whereby nearly everyone seemed to be sleepwalking through the picture - the likes of Connelly, Wilson & Winslet are all capable of much better than this, but maybe they were all sleepwalking through the film because they were so bored by everything - hey if that's the case then I know how they feel!!!.The more 'interesting' aspect of the film involving the 'reformed' paedophile Ronnie (superbly portrayed by Jackie Haley) is virtually ignored for almost the entire running time. There's one incident in the pool and one incident when Ronnie goes on a date. The only mildly interesting storyline I found here was the storyline between Ronnie and Larry. When it's revealed that Larry killed a teenager in the mistaken belief that he was about to shoot another kid (both were carrying toy guns) I got the impression that Larry terrorised Ronnie more as a way of making himself feel less guilty for what he did to that teenager. Whilst Ronnie is an interesting character I never felt sure what the writers were trying to say about his character? He seems to be painted in a sympathetic light and doesn't show any signs that he's going to harm anyone, but then at the end of his date he goes all psycho on his date for no reason?? Then later his mum dies and we're presumably supposed to feel sorry for him again???Maybe the point of the film was to show that all humans are flawed and that in life maybe people should be given a second chance (there also seemed to be themes about letting go of the past and moving on). It's too bad that as a whole the bulk of the story is dull, boring and uninteresting (like a lot of the characters).

Just to say first 7.5 is my original rating, I could give it an 8 though but settle on 7.5 but that doesn't mean that this film is not worth watching this is a very good drama movie I'd watched after a long time.The movie according to me is on the subject of infidelity or just say love finds its way and it can't be abandon. Every character plays a major or important role in the movie. The character I liked was of Brad to me he is reckless didn't take life seriously and ends in infidelity. So why the title "Little Children" the film focus on a guy (a pervert) played by Jackie Earle Haley who was released from the prison by committing a crime in front of a child anyways everyone in the town is scared of him that he might hurt their children in this way all the lives of characters somehow intervene. According to me what this movie really tells us is that its our children who need our attention, our love and affection, we should take care of them give them a happy and loving environment, despite of all the differences between us we should not destroy their childhood.And yes the ending was perfect and it couldn't be a better ending than this, So if you're looking for an adult drama movie this is the best choice for you.