Synopsis

Life is somewhat difficult for Sarah Pierce. Her husband has been neglecting her needs and their three year old daughter Lucy constantly challenges her authority. Sarah has recently returned to the local playground where she and a group of women meet each afternoon. Sarah finds it difficult to bond with the three women who's lives seem so removed from hers. Then 'Prom King' Brad Adamson returns to the playground with his son Aaron. Brad is a housefather who has twice failed to pass the local Bar Exam and is crippled with insecurity over the fact that his perfect wife, Kathy, is the family breadwinner. Although he keeps to himself, he is the centre of the women's attention. Sarah bets her friends she can get his number. He seems friendly enough, agreeing to hug her in front of the other women. Then he kisses her. It sparks a yearning in Sarah that will eventually lead to a passionate affair.

What The Critics Say

"At its heart, this is a story about the way we judge others, the way others judge us, and the way we judge ourselves." Kim Voynar CINEMATICAL "Unnervingly funny and quietly devastating." Peter Travers ROLLING STONE "Magnetic, a movie that manages to be artistic and entertaining all at once." Joshua Tyler CINEMABLEND "Todd Fields' superb film adaptation of the novel by Tom Perrotta result is challenging, accessible and hard to stop thinking about." A.O. Scott NEW YORK TIMES "An honest film with believable characters that does not depend on arbitrary or unlikely plot developments to achieve dramatic tension." Robert Roten LARAMIE MOVIE SCOPE "As the deranged and tortured Ronald, Jackie Earle Haley is appallingly creepy, meaning he's perfect. His unstable character lingers in your mind. While you're watching, he seems to be a dirty bomb of perverse violence." Phil Villarreal ARIZONA DAILY STAR

"Little Children is neither a sitcom nor a melodrama. Instead, it feels like real life, inhabited by real people with real problems. If this story actually happened, this is exactly how it would go down." Mike McGranaghan AISLE SEAT "One of the very best movies of the year, Little Children is a gripping romantic tragedy." Steve Rhodes INTERNET REVIEWS "A wonderfully impulsive, engrossing journey of lustful temptation and an engaging snapshot of fixation." Brian Orndorf OHMYNEWS "Little Children is outstanding and I think it will be one of those films that people don’t really recognize it’s greatness until a few years down the road." Don R Lewis FILM THREAT "Finally, here's a film that embraces human nature instead of twisting it into something ridiculously palatable." Caroline Kepnes E! ONLINE "Filled with moments of painful revelation, real comedy and emotional insight." Mick LaSalle SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE "Field and Perrotta find the humour in human foibles, but it is the drama of humdrum lives that draws their fascination and sympathy. And in Winslet and Wilson, they have found a most fascinating pair." Peter Howell TORONTO STAR

The Inside Story In 2001, after completing In The Bedroom, I began to pursue the film rights for Richard Yates’ novel "Revolutionary Road". However, this was not possible due to complications involving the estate. But what had attracted me to Yates’ book was the central theme of his two main characters; Frank & April Wheeler. They are not prepared to let go of the dreams, and unfulfilled promise of their own youth, and to focus that kind of attention on their offspring; their identities based strictly on how they rank in relation to other people. They judge hard, and in the end it comes back on them.
In 2003 I read the galleys for Tom Perrotta’s new novel "Little Children". I was excited by its similarity to Revolutionary Road. However, where as Yates’s story leaves you emotionally gutted– the writer being an angry, and unforgiving God, "Little Children" was a satirical-melodrama, and Perrotta was not so quick to judge his characters. He painted them with empathy & humor; the mainframe of the book being the idea of "Mother", with the thread of matriarchy running through every relationship in the story. In early 2004 I met with Tom to discuss the possibility of adapting the novel. There were things for the film I would want to change. Primarily, knowing for certain what the sex offender, Ronnie, had, or hadn’t done, that led to his incarceration. He should represent an almost fairytale-like archetype from the Brother’s Grimm: The troll under the bridge, or Beowulf’s Grendel. Serving as an alibi, and distraction for the other characters– a receptacle to rationalize their own fear & desire without the burden of self-examination. The struggle for identity is what these characters battle from the start; it leads to a hunger they are unable to satiate– violence & fear hold sway. The shame of how they see themselves when the fingers start pointing. It was with this idea in mind, that Tom and I began our work together. Todd Field Director and co-scriptwriter.
Todd Field made his feature film debut at the Sundance Film Festival with "In the Bedroom". Internationally acclaimed by critics, the film was named Best Picture of the Year by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, The New Yorker, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. The film went on to receive five Academy Award nominations including Best Picture of the Year. The New York Film Critics Circle, the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association acknowledged Field for his work on the film, and the National Board of Review named him Director of the Year. Field received two Academy Award nominations, a Golden Globe nomination, and an Independent Spirit Award. The British Film Institute recognized Field with the Satyajit Ray Award, and the American Film Institute honored him with the Franklin J Schaffner Alumni Medal. Of Field’s short films, "Nonnie & Alex", premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and received a Special Jury Prize. "When I was a Boy", also made its premiere at the festival, and went on to the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s New Directors/New Films Series at the Museum of Modern Art. As an actor, Field has appeared in such films as Victor Nunez’s "Ruby in Paradise" with Ashley Judd; "Radio Days" with Seth Green; "Gross Anantomy" with Matthew Modine; "The Haunting" with Liam Neeson & Catherine Zeeter-Jones and, Stanley Kubrick’s "Eyes Wide Shut" with Tom Cruise & Nicole Kidman. Tom Perrotta The author of Election and Little Children started writing early, publishing stories "heavily influenced by Rod Serling" in a high school literary magazine called Pariah, according to his Web site autobiography. He got a master's degree in creative writing at Syracuse University, wrote ad copy, taught full-time schedules for part-time pay at Yale and Harvard, among other places. Along the way he married, had a son and a daughter, and filled a drawer with unpublished novels. "I really struggled to get into print," he says. "I found breaking into Hollywood easier than breaking into the New York publishing world."
He's not kidding. "Election", a satiric tale about a campaign for high school class president born out of his obsession with the 1992 three-way U.S. presidential race, was optioned as a film three years before it was published as a novel. It arrived in bookstores in 1999, mere months before the opening of the movie, directed by Alexander Payne ("Sideways") and starring Reese Witherspoon in a breakthrough role as terrifyingly perky Tracy Flick. Little Children, published in 2004, deftly combines a comedy of manners about the sexual escapades of suburban parents with a darkly suspenseful tale of how a community deals with a child molester in its midst. It inspired the New York Times Book Review to call Perrotta an "American Chekhov whose characters even at their most ridiculous seem blessed and ennobled by a luminous human aura." Directed by Todd Field (In the Bedroom) and starring Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson, the film is the reason Perrotta is going to the Golden Globes on Monday night. He and Field are nominated for best screenplay; the movie also received nominations for best motion picture drama and best actress in a drama, for Winslet.
Adapting his novel into a screenplay was "a very interesting experience. Todd and I didn't know each other at all. It was like, 'Hi, how are you? Let's write something together.' "It's a very private thing to write, so it was a big risk. But I'm very happy with the way it turned out."
Working on screenplays and novels has taken him away from teaching on a regular basis, he says. But he still enjoys working with writing students at programs like the Stonecoast Writers Conference in Maine. Teaching writing is a complex business, Perrotta says. "You can't give somebody talent, and you can't give somebody that deep desire to write, and those are two crucial things." "But if somebody has talent, you can encourage it. And there are concrete craft things you can teach them." Among the most important things he teaches, he says, is how to read like a writer. "It's very striking to me that some of these students just haven't read a lot. If you're serious about writing, you have to absorb a whole lot of literature. And I don't mean they should scan it; they should absorb it into their bones."
Perrotta recently finished writing another novel, The Abstinence Teacher, which will be published in the fall. "It's about sex education and the culture wars. It's close in spirit to Little Children, I think." And has this one already been optioned for the movies? "Oh, yeah." He'll be working on the screenplay for Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the directing team behind the indie hit Little Miss Sunshine. "With two movies under my belt, I'm very much in the mix in Hollywood."
© 2007 - St Petersburg Times - All Rights Reserved The Verdict "Powerful, emotive, sensational. Probably the best adult drama you've seen in a long while. Nominated for three Academy Awards including Best Actress, "Little Children" features a stella cast, spellbinding imagery from Antonio Calvache, a beautiful soundtrack score and a superb storyline. The most defining moments in "Little Children" come when Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson, Noah Emmerich and Jackie Earle Haley (playing Ronnie J McGorvey) are on the screen. The characters they portray are truly fascinating, immediately sparking an impatient desire in ones mind to know more about them and where their lives are heading. The energy charged sex scenes involving Winslet and Wilson are raw, passionate and beautifully filmed with never a hint of sensationalism. Neither do they appear smutty, simply because one feels a real empathy for their characters Sarah and Brad, even though we realize that morally their affair is wrong and we dread the outcome if they are discovered, it is somewhat hard to condem them or even disapprove of their actions. "Little Children" is a challenging film, but thanks to the glorious script from 2007 Academy Award nominees Todd Field and author Tom Perrotta it is a most rewarding experience. Very recommended. 4 1/2 STARS." Cast & Crew Bytes "LITTLE CHILDREN" stars .......
BAFTA and the Screen Actors Guild Award winner Kate Winslet ["Quills", "Enigma", "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", "Finding Neverland" and "The Holiday"]; Patrick Wilson ["My Sister's Wedding", "The Alamo", "The Phantom of the Opera" and "Hard Candy"]; Gregg Edelman ["Green Card", "Cradle Will Rock", "City By The Sea" and "Spider-Man 2"]; Jackie Earle Haley ["The Bad News Bears", "The Zoo Gang" and "Nemesis"], Noah Emmerich ["Crazy In Alabama", "Frequency", "Windtalkers" and "Cellular"] and Golden Globe & Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly ["Requiem for a Dream", "A Beautiful Mind", "House Of Sand and Fog" and "Blood Diamond"] as Kathy Adamson.
"LITTLE CHILDREN" was .......
directed by National Board of Review Director of the Year. Todd Field ["Too Romantic", "Delivering", "Nonnie & Alex" and "In the Bedroom"]; screenplay by Todd Field ["Too Romantic", "Delivering" and "In the Bedroom"] and Tom Perrotta ["Little Children"]; adapted from the novel by author Tom Perrotta ["Election", "The Wishbones", "Joe College" and "Bad Haircut"]; cinematography by Antonio Calvache ["La Suerte Dormida" and "In The Bedroom"]; original music by EMMY Award winner Thomas Newman ["The Shawshank Redemption", "Fried Green Tomatoes", "The Green Mile", "In the Bedroom", "American Beauty", "The Road To Perdition", "Finding Nemo" and "The Good German"]; production design by ADG Excellence in Production Design Award winner David Gropman ["Chocolat", "Cider House Rules" and "Casanova"]; edited by Leo Trombetta A.C.E. ["Amongst Friends", "Twin Falls Idaho" and "Green Dragon"] costume design by Melissa Economy ["In The Bedroom"]. Run Time 136 minutes Rated MA15+ [AUST] Copyright ©2007 - New Line Cinema - All Rights Reserved Copyright Protected © 2007 - Impact Internet Services - All Rights Reserved