LITTLE CHILDREN

LITTLE CHILDREN (2006, USA, Todd Field, screenplay by Todd Field & Tom Perrotta from Perrotta’s novel)
Do you feel bad about this?
No, I don’t.
I do. I feel really bad.

Literate, intelligent, challenging, adult: the anatomy of an affair, an inquiry into sexual and other sin that holds an unflinching - but never cynical - mirror up to human behavior. A queasy watch (due to a pedophile character, and much Risky Behaviour on every side), and some have qualms about the trademark novelistic/ironic tone of the Tom Perrotta voice-over (dialed way down from ELECTION, but still), yet it all works for me. It’s an intriguing counterpoint to director Todd Field's IN THE BEDROOM: living in Updike/Cheever territory, both are all about Our Human Condition – infidelity, family, death, decision and consequence, guilt and shame, the threat of violence – but this one's also all about grace. Wow.

THE WOODSMAN

Available at Videomatica