When adults play

Little Children opens seemingly as a movie on the threat of pedophilia-but ends as a film on something less sensational, but increasingly more disturbing: the threat of morally-impaired parents setting examples for their innocent children to follow.

The real children in this film are the adults: Sarah, the lonely, bored, high-brow housewife who can't relate with the shallow super-moms; Brad, the frustrated househusband who can't tell his supportive but cold wife that he has given up on the bar exams after failing twice; Larry, the unstable ex-cop who makes himself the one-man committee policing his community; and Ronnie, the convicted pedophile who disturbs the idyllic neighborhood when he moves in with his mother after he is released from prison.

Sarah (Kate Winslet) and Brad (Patrick Wilson) strike up a friendship that begins innocently enough. Brad is the mysterious young father who takes his son every morning to the neighborhood park, the hunk the other super-moms refer to as "The Prom King." Sarah takes on a bet that she could get his name and phone number, and brings it to a higher level: she tells him about the five-dollar prize, laughingly suggests they split it, and asks for a hug and a kiss to shock the panties off the Martha Stewart wannabes. Both lonely and feeling unfulfilled, however, they soon tumble into an escapist, passionate love affair.

Their affair has for its backdrop a heightened state of alarm in their neighborhood because of Ronnie's (Jackie Earle Haley) presence. Brad's buddy Larry (Noah Emmerich), in particular, takes it upon himself to distribute warning flyers bearing Ronnie's picture. On some nights, Larry would park his van in front of Ronnie's mother's house to let him know he was watching. On other nights, he would bang on the door demanding to talk to Ronnie, issue verbal threats via a megaphone, or vandalize Ronnie's mother's property with words like "evil."

Larry was dismissed by the police force when he was diagnosed with trauma after shooting an unarmed teenager at a shopping mall. Ronnie, on the other hand, was convicted only (a word that becomes increasingly significant as the film, and his persecution progresses) of indecent exposure.

The tension is gripping in this wry and quiet movie. Everything seems to begin at almost breaking point: the humdrum domestic situations, the love affair, the bid to bring peace back to the community. Director Todd Field (who co-wrote the screenplay with Tom Perrotta, author of the book upon which the movie was based) seems to have a perverse and subtle sense of humor, one which he skillfully wields in making this movie.

An unforgettable scene that had me laughing at one point, fearful the next, and feeling sorry for Ronnie a second later was when on one particularly stifling hot day, he takes a dip in the town pool filled with children watched by their parents. Recognizing him as the predator the community has made him out to be, one mother calls on her child to get out of the pool, starting a panicked flight that had all the children screaming as they blindly clambered out, as if a shark had suddenly appeared in the water. It left Ronnie looking like a strange, pathetic creature in goggles and flippers, swimming at the bottom of the pool. Sarah and Brad, who spend afternoons in the pool in the guise of play dates for their children, seem oblivious to the neighborhood jitters because they're too taken by their own situation. But it's not only that they are oblivious to, but also the realities of family life (they have to sneak their trysts in between their children's nap times, so they make an arrangement for their kids to nap together in Sarah's house); instead of going to the bar exams, Brad sneaks out on a trip with Sarah (when his wife Kathy, portrayed by Jennifer Connelly, is having a hard time making ends meet because she let herself be the sole breadwinner so he could focus on reviewing for the exams); and when they make plans to run away together, the only real plan Sarah and Brad make is how to escape.

In the end, Sarah, Brad and even Larry's behavior implodes on them-forcing them to wake up from their puerile delusions and face their lives squarely. Ultimately, the film tells us that life may be painfully dull or heart-wrenchingly difficult, but the only effective way to deal with it is to grow up. Email your comments to [email protected].