Little Children (partial spoiler)

I saw this movie last night, and didn't know what to think before I went in. I expected the performances to be good, but other than that I had heard many different things - the styles were weird, the narration was irritating, the preview was misleading etc.

All of these things contained a grain of truth. The preview was very misleading - it makes it look like a tense drama/thriller, and it is not, although by I hadn't been so physically stressed in a movie for a long time. The narration was certainly obvious, but I found it strangely endearing. There were definitely two distinct styles blended into one film, but despite a few jarring moments, it worked for me. And the performances were a triumph - Kate Winslet and Jackie Earle Haley fully deserve their Oscar nominations.

This film focuses on American suburbia and its inhabitants, primarily young families. Done, right? Not so much apparently. This quirky blend of black comedy and discomforting drama still retains a sense of individuality. It addresses marriage, adultery, depression, lonliness and aside from all these themes, the very real issues of a sex offender living in a community of children. The sex offender issue is the main player in a very real subplot that was so strong it was in fact in danger of stealing the film from the main story line of adultery and longing for something more.

This film began slowly and artfully built up the tension even through several laugh out loud moments, black comedy, and some very jarring collisions of genres. The tension built up to such a point that I was almost SURE it was going to have my favourite 'everyone loses' ending. But once again, like Breaking and Entering, it seemed to 'cop out'. To me it seemed that everyone got to take the easy option, albeit not the one their reckless passion led them to want. However after some furious emailing with David today, it would seem that there is another take on the ending - that everyone did lose, and things ended as they should have. You'll need to decide that one for yourself - to me, to end in such a way was just a massive waste of my tooth grinding stomaching tensing stress.

Overall, this film has many surprising aspects - most of all, that I still like it despite what i considered to be an unsatisfactory ending.

8.