Synopsis
The lives of two lovelorn spouses from separate marriages, a registered sex offender, and a disgraced ex-police officer intersect as they struggle to resist their vulnerabilities and temptations.
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Cast
- Kate WinsletSarah Pierce
- Patrick WilsonBrad Adamson
- Jennifer ConnellyKathy Adamson
- Gregg EdelmanRichard Pierce
- Sadie GoldsteinLucy Pierce
- Ty SimpkinsAaron Adamson
- Noah EmmerichLarry Hedges
- Jackie Earle HaleyRonnie J. McGorvey
- Phyllis SomervilleMay McGorvey
- Helen CareyJean
Recommendations
- 91
Entertainment Weekly
A jolting, artfully made drama set in and around a suburban playground somewhere between "American Beauty" and "In the Bedroom" on America's psychic highway. - 90
The Hollywood Reporter
Providing richness of detail and metaphor, elegantly blueprinted themes and impressive mastery of a constantly shifting tone, Little Children does just that. It is a deeply satisfying film. - 90
The New York Times
The result is a movie that is challenging, accessible and hard to stop thinking about...But in too many recent movies intelligence is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality -- even more than its considerable beauty -- that distinguishes Little Children from its peers. - 88
ReelViews
The rarest of movies - a literary multi-character drama. From the erudition of the voiceover narrative to the three dimensionality of the characters, Field's film is the closest it's possible to get to a book without reading one. - 88
Rolling Stone
This unnervingly funny and quietly devastating film -- director Todd Field's first since his smash 2001 debut with "In the Bedroom" -- pulls you in like a magnetic-force field. - 70
Variety
Like "In the Bedroom," Little Children, at well over two hours, is somewhat long for an intense, intimate drama, and arguments could run many ways concerning what could be tightened or excised. - 70
Newsweek
The Madame Bovary-in-suburbia motif may sound familiar, yet the unusual mix of satire and melodrama feels fresh. Not everything works (beware the football scenes), but this adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel is hard to shake off. - 50
Village Voice
This overly long movie, made sluggish by a superfluously novelistic narrator, feels divided against itself, driven by opposed impulses of tragedy and dark humor that make it impossible for us to identify with these lost souls' break for freedom or wait for them to grow up.
