Little Children (Spoilers)

The beginning was promising; the description of Haley’s character as a suburban menace was an intriguing foreshadowing of how his character can impact the suburban lifestyle later on. Right after, it moves into an idealistic suburban setting at the playground and the playful narrations about the characters’ nonchalant lifestyles created a Wes Anderson-esque, comic bookish mood, in which their sex lives and personalities are satirized with suburban humor.

The first 20, maybe 30 minutes aside, the rest of the film could be stated as some of the worst moments of my 2006 cinematic viewing experience. The characters soon turned into mere quirks and exaggerated sexual stereotypes. First of which is Winslet’s husband, which through his maybe three brief scenes in the film is nothing more than a piece of blatant humor and stereotype of the “horny middle-age, my-wife-won’t-have-sex-with-me” character. To say that the scene where he is caught masturbating is not funny is stating the painfully obvious, but the fact that the meaning of his character comes down to nothing more than “he’s horny” is the first sign of where the film is heading. Haley’s character could be stated similarly, in that the filmmaker needs to make it so unbelievably obvious that he is hated by the neighborhood. When he jumps into the pool, in a seemingly Jaws-like manner, and the entire community stares down on him like he would actually commit a crime in public is meaningless exposition, we know that the community hates him, flyers of him are posted everywhere, his house is vandalized, what’s the point in such a sequence? His character seems inserted as a quirk, a convict/child molester/sexual failure that is there to reflect on the failures of Wilson’s character, or of someone who is to be a neighborhood villain of some sort. In a way, his character feels extraneous.

In fact, the only supporting character actually believable is the underused Connelly. The “football” subplot, subjected to corny dreamy sequences of a community unity is hilarious to say the least, and is completely out of sync with the entire film. It’s a simplistic metaphor to highlight the extent of Wilson’s lack of an eventful life, much like Spacey’s cliché “red sports car” in American Beauty. Wilson’s fixation with skateboarders could be stated as the same, it’s nothing more than a cheap device to be interpreted as “I want to feel like a kid again.” Emmerich’s character, the most outrageous caricature in the entire film, is reduced to a mere cliché, in that the primary use for his character is simplified by his poking at turned to bullying turned to hatred turned to attempted murder of Haley, who after the completely outrageous accidental murdering of Haley’s mother, progressively turns a new leaf and “finds a conscience.” Little development is there on his character, except a superficial relationship to Wilson and his “Community of Concerned Parents” leadership.

The ending turns into a sort of pseudo-thriller and a ridiculous series of climaxes, a coincidental meeting of Winslet and Haley, a daughter that decided to run off to stare at some fireflies, and Haley and Emmerich’s glorious “let’s shake hands” conclusion. The most questionable of which is Winslet’s and Wilson’s compromise, in which they agreed, after confessing such a huge desire to be together, to run off together. What holds Wilson back is not his fear of abandoning his wife, rather his sudden urge to decide to go skateboarding; what is questionable is his burst of childhood passion at the most important moment of his life. Lol? And Winslet deciding that “crap he’s not worth it,” after that brief shock to the heart she received from her daughter does not make sense to me, it’s like Bullock falling down the stairs to find herself completely washed away of racism in Crash.

Haley was absolutely dull and passable, the only performances worth noting are Winslet, her solid, but non-award worthy "plain jane" act and the superior Demi Mooreish, "ideal housewive" portrait of Connelly.

What we’re reduced to in the film is simplistic characterization, blatant suburban stereotyping, dry sex humor, a Halloween-like ending, and a series of wax-polished symbolism, in the vein of two characteristics, the completely cinematically blatant (the “prom king” nonsense and the “Madame Bovary” references uttered simultaneously as Winslet and Wilson are having sex) and the cinematically corny and nonsensical (the kiss on the football field and little girl staring at the fireflies). 4/10