Little Children

Little Children, as provocative and deeply original a film as we are likely to see this year, is from title to end credits one of those choice little cinematic gems that is impossible to properly describe. Set in an upscale eastern suburb, this adaptation of Tom Perotta's 2004 best seller focuses on the mixed-up lives of a number of confused adults who, somewhere along the way, have lost their own identity and look to retrieve it. The methods they choose include adulterous affairs and misguided finger-pointing that only serve to make them more stuck in their trapped existences. When a sex offender (we never find out for what) is released from prison and moves into his mother's house, all the pathetic and largely unsympathetic inhabitants of this insular world try to ease the spotlight on their own shortcomings by focusing on his return. Only the second film from In The Bedroom director Todd Field, he's crafted another small, literate film that weaves its way in and out of another set of bedrooms full of broken people acting like little children instead of taking care of their own. Superb performances across the board from Kate Winslet, Patrick Wilson and Jennifer Connelly strike just the right balance to make these characters stop just south of becoming caricatures. The real find though is the startling comeback of long-forgotten child actor Jackie Earle Haley as the pedophile, who in 1976 was throwing softballs in the Bad News Bears. 30 years later he's just bad news. Little Children is as raw, rich and edgy as it gets.