Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Little Children (2006) - Field's second film is a great, scathing adaptation about middle class suburbanites

9/19/2018

Little Children (2006) - Field's second film is a great, scathing adaptation about middle class suburbanites

♥♥♥♥♥

+ Best Feel-Bad Movie of the Year

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.

Related posts:

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Watch a trailer for the film here

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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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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9/19/2018

Little Children (2006) - Field's second film is a great, scathing adaptation about middle class suburbanites

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