+ Best Feel-Bad Movie of the Year
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| Intense darkness and the naked bodies of two of the film's stars, with a drop of sweat on Patrick Wilson's torso, indicates both something dark and sensual on this poster for Todd Field's Little Children |
A pent-up, unhappy housewife has an affair with the prom king of her high school days, while a flasher moves into her suburban neighborhood.
Little Children is written by great co-writer/co-producer/director Todd Field (In the Bedroom (2001)) and Tom Perrotta (The Leftovers (2011), novel), based on his same-titled 2004 novel. It is Field's 2nd theatrical feature. It is a very fine film about miserable 'little children' (adults, really) of suburbia.
Little Children is extremely well-written, directed, acted and shot (by Antonio Calvache (Sleeping Luck (2003))).
Kate Winslet (Iris (2001)) plays the unresolved wife and mother character that she has portrayed well in other films as well. The sex offender is played phenomenally by Jackie Earle Haley (All the King's Men (2006)).
The themes and feelings stirred by the film are so related to those from Sam Mendes' modern classic American Beauty (1999), - the film's composer Thomas Newman (Saving Mr. Banks (2013)) was also contracted and made the score for Little Children, - and the similarities may explain why Little Children wasn't nearly as successful as American Beauty, even though it may be a tiny bit better.
This love-themed drama is for the most part a depressing time, which I write in the best possible way.
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Cost: 26 mil. $
Box office: 14.8 mil. $
= Huge flop (returned 0.56 times the cost)
[Little Children premiered 1 September (Telluride Film Festival, Colorado) and runs 137 minutes. Field and Perrotta have reportedly deliberately changed the film's story to some degree from the one in the novel. Shooting took place in Boston, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Maine, California and New Jersey from July - September 2005. It opened #42 to a 97k $ opening weekend in 5 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #27 and in 115 theaters (different weeks) and grossed 5.4 mil. $ (36.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Spain with 1.1 mil. $ (7.4 %) and the UK with 0.8 mil. $ (5.4 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 2.5/4 star review, translating to two notches harder than this one. The film was nominated for 3 Oscars: Best Actress (Winslet), lost to Helen Mirren in The Queen), Supporting Actor (Haley), lost to Alan Arkin in Little Miss Sunshine, and Adapted Screenplay, lost to William Monahan for The Departed. It was also nominated for 3 Golden Globes and received many other honors. Field has yet to return as a director: He has pursued a now abandoned war drama titled America's Last Prisoner of War, and is set to direct for the Daniel Craig-starring TV-series Purity; he is also pursuing adaptation The Creed of Violence. Winslet returned in All the King's Men (2006), Jennifer Connelly (Noah (2014)) in Blood Diamond (2006), and Patrick Wilson (Fargo (2015), TV-series) in Running with Scissors (2006). Little Children is certified fresh at 80 % with a 7.4/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Little Children?
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