Little Children (2006)

Sarah (Kate Winslet) is a married stay at home mother who is feeling unloved by her husband and resentful of her daughter and stifled in her otherwise perfect suburban life until she meets Brad (Patrick Wilson). Brad is a stay at home father studing for the bar exams after failing them twice. Brad and Sarah revel in the time they have together during the weekdays as they use their children as an excuse to meet at the park or the pool, but soon it goes beyond friendship. Ronnie (Jakie Earle Haley) is a convicted sex offender just out of prison and living in his mother's house. Larry, Brad's friend and ex-cop, takes it upon himself to rid the neighborhood of Ronnie. Hilarity esues as these stories entermingle and weave together a not so perfect portrait of a perfect little suburb.

Trivia: The Brazilian name: Pecados Intimos (Intimate Sins) kind of fits the movie better then Little Children. Jackie Earle Haley's first movie for 13 years. He was nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actor but lost to Alan Arkin in Little Miss Sunshine. In the novel, the character Ronnie bears very little physical resemblance to Jackie Earle Haley, being an overweight, balding chain-smoker who wears glasses. The novel makes the character even less likable and is a little clearer on whether he actually was involved in the little girl's disappearance.

All in all a nice little movie with good performances all around, especially Jackie Earle Haley. What I really liked about this movie was the narrator (even though they didn't use him enough). He mostly narrated stuff about Sarah and Brad and mostly left the rest of the people alone, which I kind of thought was weird, but it was the style of narration that was cool. It sounded like he was reading out of a book. It gave a very literary feel to the story. Most of the time you have to infer what the characters are thinking, but if you read the story in the book you get that insight into the characters, and that is what you get here. Here is a sample:

Narrator: In his wildest dreams Larry would never have imagined he'd once again be in this position, where precious minutes count. Tonight he could save a life. He knew Ronnie had done some bad things in the past, but so had Larry. You couldn't change the past. But the future could be a different story. And it had to start somewhere.

Pretty cool. And as a bonus, Jennifer Connelly was in it too!