.gif)
Little Children (film)
Encyclopedia
Little Children is a 2006 American drama film directed by Todd Field
. It is based on the novel of the same name
by Tom Perrotta
, who along with Field wrote the screenplay. It stars Kate Winslet
, Patrick Wilson
, Jennifer Connelly
, Jackie Earle Haley
, Noah Emmerich
, Gregg Edelman
, Phyllis Somerville
and Will Lyman
. The original music score is composed by Thomas Newman
. The film premiered at the 44th New York Film Festival
organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center
.
) is a reluctant housewife and mother in an upper-middle class suburb of Boston. She is married to Richard Pierce (Gregg Edelman
), a successful yet distant husband, who is secretly obsessed with an internet porn star. Sarah refers to her daughter Lucy as an "unknowable little person" and feels out of place around the other mothers at a local playground.
Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson
) is a former college football
player who's married to Kathy (Jennifer Connelly
), a documentary
filmmaker
, with a young son named Aaron. Brad is depressed and frustrated, as his wife is the breadwinner and he is a stay-at-home father who has failed the bar exam
twice. Each day he leaves home with the pretense of going to the library to study, but spends the time watching skateboarders at the nearby park. He joins a policeman's touch football
team at the urging of a friend, Larry Hedges (Noah Emmerich
), a disgraced former police officer.
Sarah and Brad meet on the school playground, where Sarah suggests they hug to shock the watching mothers nearby. Brad kisses her, and it quickly becomes apparent that the two are attracted to each other. Over the course of several visits to the local pool, Sarah and Brad get to know each other, and soon begin an affair.
Meanwhile, Ronald "Ronnie" James McGorvey (Jackie Earle Haley
), who has served a prison sentence for indecent exposure
to a minor, has moved back into the neighborhood to live with his mother. Larry launches a harassment campaign against Ronnie, handing out posters, vandalizing
his house, harassing and almost assault
ing the man and his mother. Ronnie's mother (Phyllis Somerville
) tries to help by setting Ronnie up on a date, which ends badly with him masturbating
in his date's car outside a children's playground.
Brad and Sarah finally see each other at a football game, where he asks her to run away with him; the two agree to meet up at a local park the next night. After the game a drunken Larry goes to McGorvey's house and further harasses him, using a megaphone to wake the entire neighborhood. Mrs. McGorvey tries to stop him, but Larry pushes her down. She has a heart attack
and later dies in the hospital. Ronnie is devastated at losing the one person who loved him.
That evening Sarah packs a bag and takes Lucy to the playground to wait for Brad. On the way to the playground, Brad is again transfixed by the young skateboarders, who dare him to try one jump on a short stair rail. Brad can't resist and ends up injuring himself. Sarah is unexpectedly met at the playground by Ronnie instead and tries to comfort him, leaving Lucy to wander off by herself. This frightens Sarah into realizing that leaving Richard would be a terrible mistake. Once she finds Lucy, Sarah tearfully embraces her daughter and goes home. Brad is taken to the hospital and asks the police officer on the scene to call his wife.
Larry comes to the park to find Ronnie and apologize for harassing him. Noticing blood dripping off Ronnie, he is horrified to discover that Ronnie has castrated
himself. Panicked, Larry picks Ronnie up and takes him to the hospital. They arrive just as Kathy meets Brad's ambulance at the emergency room doors. The film ends with an image of a remorseful Sarah sleeping alongside Lucy in their home.
Supporting characters
and novelist Tom Perrotta intended to take the story in a separate and somewhat different direction than the novel. "When Todd and I began collaborating on the script, we were hoping to make something new out of the material, rather than simply reproducing the book onto film," says Perrotta.
, 79% of critics gave Little Children a positive review (122 "Fresh"; 30 "Rotten"), with an average
rating of 7.8/10. A. O. Scott
of The New York Times
said "Mr. Field proves to be among the most literary of American filmmakers. 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. A movie that is challenging, accessible, and hard to stop thinking about." Scott later placed Little Children ninth on his list of the top 10 films of 2006.
The Los Angeles Timess Carina Chocano said "Little Children is one of those rare films that transcends its source material. Firmly rooted in the present and in our current frame of mind — a time and frame of mind that few artists have shown interest in really exploring — the movie is one of the few films I can think of that examines the baffling combination of smugness, self-abnegation, ceremonial deference and status anxiety that characterizes middle-class Gen X parenting, and find sheer, white-knuckled terror at its core."
's permanent film collection.
Todd Field
William Todd Field, known professionally as Todd Field is an American actor and writer/director. He has received three Academy Award nominations.-Background and personal life:...
. It is based on the novel of the same name
Little Children (novel)
Little Children is a 2004 novel by American author Tom Perrotta that interweaves the darkly comedic stories of seven main characters, all of whom live in the same suburban Boston neighborhood during the middle of a hot summer...
by Tom Perrotta
Tom Perrotta
Thomas R. Perrotta is an Albanian-American/ Italian-American novelist and screenwriter best known for his novels Election and Little Children , both of which were made into critically acclaimed, Academy Award-nominated films...
, who along with Field wrote the screenplay. It stars Kate Winslet
Kate Winslet
Kate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader...
, Patrick Wilson
Patrick Wilson (actor)
Patrick Joseph Wilson is an American actor and singer. Wilson has spent years singing lead roles in major Broadway musicals, beginning in 1996. In 2003, he appeared in the HBO mini-series Angels in America...
, Jennifer Connelly
Jennifer Connelly
Jennifer Lynn Connelly is an American film actress, who began her career as a child model. She appeared in magazine, newspaper and television advertising, before making her motion picture debut in the 1984 crime film Once Upon a Time in America...
, Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley is an American film actor. Establishing himself from child actor to adult Academy Award-nominee, he is perhaps best known for his roles as Moocher in Breaking Away, Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears, pedophile Ronnie McGorvey in Little Children, the vigilante Rorschach in...
, Noah Emmerich
Noah Emmerich
Noah Nicholas Emmerich is an American film actor who first broke out in the film Beautiful Girls. He was later seen in movies like The Truman Show, Cop Land, Frequency, Love & Sex, Windtalkers, Miracle, Super 8 and Little Children.-Early life:Emmerich was born in New York City to a Jewish family,...
, Gregg Edelman
Gregg Edelman
Gregg Edelman is an American movie, television and theatre actor.Edelman was born in Chicago, Illinois, attended Niles North High School, where he starred as Lil' Abner opposite future soap star Nancy Lee Grahn, and was trained at Northwestern University...
, Phyllis Somerville
Phyllis Somerville
Phyllis Somerville, born 1944, is an American stage, screen, and television actress. Her most prominent role to date was in 2006 as the mother of the sexual predator played by Jackie Earle Haley in Todd Field's Little Children....
and Will Lyman
Will Lyman
William Lyman is an American voice-over artist and actor, perhaps best known for his polished, resonant voice that has narrated the PBS series Frontline since its second season in 1984. Lyman has made a successful career in television and theater...
. The original music score is composed by Thomas Newman
Thomas Newman
Thomas Montgomery Newman is an American composer and conductor, best known for his many film scores. He is one of the more respected and recognized composers for modern film and has scored over fifty feature films in a career which spans nearly three decades.Newman has received a total of ten...
. The film premiered at the 44th New York Film Festival
New York Film Festival
The New York Film Festival has been a major film festival since it began in 1963 in New York. The films are selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center...
organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center
Film Society of Lincoln Center
The Film Society of Lincoln Center based in New York City, United States, is one of the world's most prominent film presentation organizations. Founded in 1969 by three Lincoln Center executives - William F. May, Martin E. Segal and Schuyler G...
.
Plot
Sarah Pierce (Kate WinsletKate Winslet
Kate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader...
) is a reluctant housewife and mother in an upper-middle class suburb of Boston. She is married to Richard Pierce (Gregg Edelman
Gregg Edelman
Gregg Edelman is an American movie, television and theatre actor.Edelman was born in Chicago, Illinois, attended Niles North High School, where he starred as Lil' Abner opposite future soap star Nancy Lee Grahn, and was trained at Northwestern University...
), a successful yet distant husband, who is secretly obsessed with an internet porn star. Sarah refers to her daughter Lucy as an "unknowable little person" and feels out of place around the other mothers at a local playground.
Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson
Patrick Wilson (actor)
Patrick Joseph Wilson is an American actor and singer. Wilson has spent years singing lead roles in major Broadway musicals, beginning in 1996. In 2003, he appeared in the HBO mini-series Angels in America...
) is a former college football
College football
College football refers to American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies, or Canadian football played by teams of student athletes fielded by Canadian universities...
player who's married to Kathy (Jennifer Connelly
Jennifer Connelly
Jennifer Lynn Connelly is an American film actress, who began her career as a child model. She appeared in magazine, newspaper and television advertising, before making her motion picture debut in the 1984 crime film Once Upon a Time in America...
), a documentary
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
filmmaker
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
, with a young son named Aaron. Brad is depressed and frustrated, as his wife is the breadwinner and he is a stay-at-home father who has failed the bar exam
Bar examination
A bar examination is an examination conducted at regular intervals to determine whether a candidate is qualified to practice law in a given jurisdiction.-Brazil:...
twice. Each day he leaves home with the pretense of going to the library to study, but spends the time watching skateboarders at the nearby park. He joins a policeman's touch football
Touch football (American)
Touch football is a variant of American football in which the basic rules are similar to those of the mainstream game , but instead of tackling players to the ground, the person carrying the ball need only be touched by a member of the opposite team to end a down...
team at the urging of a friend, Larry Hedges (Noah Emmerich
Noah Emmerich
Noah Nicholas Emmerich is an American film actor who first broke out in the film Beautiful Girls. He was later seen in movies like The Truman Show, Cop Land, Frequency, Love & Sex, Windtalkers, Miracle, Super 8 and Little Children.-Early life:Emmerich was born in New York City to a Jewish family,...
), a disgraced former police officer.
Sarah and Brad meet on the school playground, where Sarah suggests they hug to shock the watching mothers nearby. Brad kisses her, and it quickly becomes apparent that the two are attracted to each other. Over the course of several visits to the local pool, Sarah and Brad get to know each other, and soon begin an affair.
Meanwhile, Ronald "Ronnie" James McGorvey (Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley
Jackie Earle Haley is an American film actor. Establishing himself from child actor to adult Academy Award-nominee, he is perhaps best known for his roles as Moocher in Breaking Away, Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears, pedophile Ronnie McGorvey in Little Children, the vigilante Rorschach in...
), who has served a prison sentence for indecent exposure
Indecent exposure
Indecent exposure is the deliberate exposure in public or in view of the general public by a person of a portion or portions of his or her body, in circumstances where the exposure is contrary to local moral or other standards of appropriate behavior. Indecent exposure laws vary in different...
to a minor, has moved back into the neighborhood to live with his mother. Larry launches a harassment campaign against Ronnie, handing out posters, vandalizing
Vandalism
Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...
his house, harassing and almost assault
Assault
In law, assault is a crime causing a victim to fear violence. The term is often confused with battery, which involves physical contact. The specific meaning of assault varies between countries, but can refer to an act that causes another to apprehend immediate and personal violence, or in the more...
ing the man and his mother. Ronnie's mother (Phyllis Somerville
Phyllis Somerville
Phyllis Somerville, born 1944, is an American stage, screen, and television actress. Her most prominent role to date was in 2006 as the mother of the sexual predator played by Jackie Earle Haley in Todd Field's Little Children....
) tries to help by setting Ronnie up on a date, which ends badly with him masturbating
Masturbation
Masturbation refers to sexual stimulation of a person's own genitals, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation can be performed manually, by use of objects or tools, or by some combination of these methods. Masturbation is a common form of autoeroticism...
in his date's car outside a children's playground.
Brad and Sarah finally see each other at a football game, where he asks her to run away with him; the two agree to meet up at a local park the next night. After the game a drunken Larry goes to McGorvey's house and further harasses him, using a megaphone to wake the entire neighborhood. Mrs. McGorvey tries to stop him, but Larry pushes her down. She has a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
and later dies in the hospital. Ronnie is devastated at losing the one person who loved him.
That evening Sarah packs a bag and takes Lucy to the playground to wait for Brad. On the way to the playground, Brad is again transfixed by the young skateboarders, who dare him to try one jump on a short stair rail. Brad can't resist and ends up injuring himself. Sarah is unexpectedly met at the playground by Ronnie instead and tries to comfort him, leaving Lucy to wander off by herself. This frightens Sarah into realizing that leaving Richard would be a terrible mistake. Once she finds Lucy, Sarah tearfully embraces her daughter and goes home. Brad is taken to the hospital and asks the police officer on the scene to call his wife.
Larry comes to the park to find Ronnie and apologize for harassing him. Noticing blood dripping off Ronnie, he is horrified to discover that Ronnie has castrated
Castration
Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses the functions of the testicles or a female loses the functions of the ovaries.-Humans:...
himself. Panicked, Larry picks Ronnie up and takes him to the hospital. They arrive just as Kathy meets Brad's ambulance at the emergency room doors. The film ends with an image of a remorseful Sarah sleeping alongside Lucy in their home.
Cast
Main characters- Kate WinsletKate WinsletKate Elizabeth Winslet is an English actress and occasional singer. She has received multiple awards and nominations. She was the youngest person to accrue six Academy Award nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Reader...
as Sarah Pierce - Patrick WilsonPatrick Wilson (actor)Patrick Joseph Wilson is an American actor and singer. Wilson has spent years singing lead roles in major Broadway musicals, beginning in 1996. In 2003, he appeared in the HBO mini-series Angels in America...
as Brad Adamson - Jennifer ConnellyJennifer ConnellyJennifer Lynn Connelly is an American film actress, who began her career as a child model. She appeared in magazine, newspaper and television advertising, before making her motion picture debut in the 1984 crime film Once Upon a Time in America...
as Kathy Adamson - Jackie Earle HaleyJackie Earle HaleyJackie Earle Haley is an American film actor. Establishing himself from child actor to adult Academy Award-nominee, he is perhaps best known for his roles as Moocher in Breaking Away, Kelly Leak in The Bad News Bears, pedophile Ronnie McGorvey in Little Children, the vigilante Rorschach in...
as Ronald James McGorvey - Noah EmmerichNoah EmmerichNoah Nicholas Emmerich is an American film actor who first broke out in the film Beautiful Girls. He was later seen in movies like The Truman Show, Cop Land, Frequency, Love & Sex, Windtalkers, Miracle, Super 8 and Little Children.-Early life:Emmerich was born in New York City to a Jewish family,...
as Larry Hedges - Gregg EdelmanGregg EdelmanGregg Edelman is an American movie, television and theatre actor.Edelman was born in Chicago, Illinois, attended Niles North High School, where he starred as Lil' Abner opposite future soap star Nancy Lee Grahn, and was trained at Northwestern University...
as Richard Pierce - Phyllis SomervillePhyllis SomervillePhyllis Somerville, born 1944, is an American stage, screen, and television actress. Her most prominent role to date was in 2006 as the mother of the sexual predator played by Jackie Earle Haley in Todd Field's Little Children....
as Mae McGorvey - Sadie Goldstein as Lucy Pierce
- Ty SimpkinsTy SimpkinsTy Keegan Simpkins is an American child actor.-Life and career:Simpkins was born in New York City. He first appeared on TV when he was three weeks old. His first role was on One Life to Live where he shared the recurring role as John "Jack" Cramer...
as Aaron Adamson
Supporting characters
- Helen Carey as Jean
- Catherine Wolf as Marjorie
- Mary B. McCann as Mary Ann
- Trini AlvaradoTrini AlvaradoTrinidad "Trini" Alvarado is an American actress best known for her performances as Margaret "Meg" March in the 1994 film adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's novel Little Women and Lucy Lynskey in the comedy/horror film The Frighteners...
as Theresa - Marsha DietleinMarsha DietleinMarsha Dietlein Bennett is an American actress best known for her role as Lucy Wilson in the 1988 zombie horror film Return of the Living Dead Part II.-Films:...
as Cheryl - Jane AdamsJane Adams (actress)Jane Adams is an American film, television and theatre actress.- Early life :Adams was born in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Janice, an administrative assistant, and William Adams, an engineer. She has a younger brother, Jonathan, and was raised in Wheaton, Illinois and Bellevue, Washington...
as Sheila - Raymond J. BarryRaymond J. BarryRaymond John Barry is an American film, television and stage actor.-Personal life:Raymond John Barry was born in Hempstead, New York . His father, Raymond Barry, worked in sales. His mother, Barbara Barry , was also an actor, known professionally as B. Constance Barry...
as Bullhorn Bob - Rebecca SchullRebecca SchullRebecca Schull is an American film and television actress.Schull studied acting in the United States and in Dublin, Ireland...
as Laurel - Sarah Buxton as Slutty Kay
- Will LymanWill LymanWilliam Lyman is an American voice-over artist and actor, perhaps best known for his polished, resonant voice that has narrated the PBS series Frontline since its second season in 1984. Lyman has made a successful career in television and theater...
as Narrator (uncredited)
Production
For this film, director Todd FieldTodd Field
William Todd Field, known professionally as Todd Field is an American actor and writer/director. He has received three Academy Award nominations.-Background and personal life:...
and novelist Tom Perrotta intended to take the story in a separate and somewhat different direction than the novel. "When Todd and I began collaborating on the script, we were hoping to make something new out of the material, rather than simply reproducing the book onto film," says Perrotta.
Critical reception
Reviews of the film were generally very positive. Based on 152 reviews collected by the film review aggregator Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, 79% of critics gave Little Children a positive review (122 "Fresh"; 30 "Rotten"), with an average
Weighted mean
The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...
rating of 7.8/10. A. O. Scott
A. O. Scott
Anthony Oliver Scott, known as A. O. Scott , is an American journalist and critic. He is a chief film critic for The New York Times, along with Manohla Dargis.-Background and education:...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
said "Mr. Field proves to be among the most literary of American filmmakers. 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. A movie that is challenging, accessible, and hard to stop thinking about." Scott later placed Little Children ninth on his list of the top 10 films of 2006.
The Los Angeles Timess Carina Chocano said "Little Children is one of those rare films that transcends its source material. Firmly rooted in the present and in our current frame of mind — a time and frame of mind that few artists have shown interest in really exploring — the movie is one of the few films I can think of that examines the baffling combination of smugness, self-abnegation, ceremonial deference and status anxiety that characterizes middle-class Gen X parenting, and find sheer, white-knuckled terror at its core."
Differences Between the Novel and the Film
The novel ends with Todd and Sarah planning to leave their spouses. But there is a definite catch when Sarah finds, via a phone call, that Richard has left her for an internet porn star called "Slutty Kay" Sarah pushes her daughter Lucy on the swing around 9-10 p.m. while waiting for Todd, who does not show up. Just when she starts to lose hope, Ronnie shows up and tells her he killed a little girl. Larry suddenly approaches, ready to kill Ronald, but finds it in his heart to offer his condolence for May's death. Sarah just sits, baffled, wondering how she will raise her daughter, whom she feels she has greatly let down.Film archives
35mm safety prints are housed in both the UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Museum of Modern ArtMuseum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
's permanent film collection.