A.O. Scott has lots of love for 'Little Children'
Mr. Field, with his second feature — his directing debut was “In the Bedroom” — proves to be among the most literary of American filmmakers, one of the few who tries to find a visual language suited to the ambiguous plainness of contemporary realist fiction. He and Mr. Perrotta have wisely trimmed and modified the book, excising some of its harsher gothic notes and its wilder comic flights. The result is a movie that is challenging, accessible and hard to stop thinking about.
At one point Brad [Patrick Wilson] tells Sarah [Kate Winslet] that beauty is overrated, something that, as the narrator notes, only someone secure in his own beauty would say. He may nonetheless be right. But in too many recent movies intelligence is woefully undervalued, and it is this quality — even more than its considerable beauty — that distinguishes “Little Children” from its peers.
Here's the full review.
