Little Children

"Little Children" is the latest release by director Todd Field. Since 2001, when "In the Bedroom" came out and was, in my opinion, highly overrated, he hadn't brought anything new to the theatres.

To be perfectly honest, I had a very good reason to watch this, and a very good one not to. So it took me a while to work up the courage to face the almost 2,5 hours of this movie, and I'm so glad I did.

The reason to watch it was Kate Winslet, hands down and by far my favorite actress. Since "Titanic", in which she delivered an elegant and contained performance (up until the point where her character rebelled against the status quo, and it just made no sense to be contained anymore), she's been continuously building a more than impressive resume. There are just so many beautiful and praiseworthy performances throughout her career (Quills, Iris, The Life of David Gale, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Finding Neverland, The Holiday, and the list goes on) that whenever she stars any picture, I can't help but think that there's at least an 80 % chance that it's gonna be great. She's made so many good choices (and delivered accordingly) that her participation in any movie works like a quality flag inside my head, and I'm usually not disappointed.

The reason not to watch this movie was "In the Bedroom", and the fact that I couldn't quite turn my mind away from the idea that, once again, Todd Field was doing a piece around the american family in suburbia. It was a pretty pre-conceived concept, I'll admit, but I was just so disappointed with "In the Bedroom" (how can anyone make a movie with Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek at the top of their game and still make it so boring?) that the idea of going through it again didn't appeal to me at all. I'll admitt "In the Bedroom" was a great vehicle for strong and Oscar-worthy performances, but it just couldn't keep me interested after the first 30 minutes of the movie.

But I decided to stick with my quality alert and watched it. Thank God I did.

After two hours of it had gone by, I found myself wishing what I had on my DVD player was some sort of extended version of "Little Children", that would last for at least another two hours, and not the 20 minutes it said on the Netflix movie pack. I know it sounds disturbing, since the movie is anything but light-hearted, but it was just so beautifully done, and once more, Kate was nothing short of perfect, that I just wanted it to go on and on and on.

I can't really put my finger on what this movie is about (which is usually a very good sign). I'm really out of words as to what the story is about, given the fact that it talks about so many different issues, and starting a list of those here seems like a waste of time, when you can just pick it up and watch it for yourself. Should be way funner.

A warning though: I know a few people who have watched this before me and completely and absolutely hated it. So be careful; it's a great movie, but I'm not sure what kind of audience it's aimed at. I give it 5 stars out of 5.