Little Children (2006)

Surely Kate Winslet has been in a few duds, but if so, what are they? I usually feel like it's a mistake to watch a film just because an actor is in it. I mean, I do, but I'm often disappointed. I often wonder: Why on earth did they pick THAT role? Why did they agree to be in THAT movie?

It reminds me of actors like Bruce Willis who, at least at the end of his career, signed up to be in any movie that came his way. Granted, I get why Willis made that decision, but Winslet has never had to make that choice. She's always been able to pick provocative roles in good movies.

And this is a really good movie.

I did find myself saying "No... no... no..." when I realized that the film was about to end and the characters were all starting to make weird decisions. I don't believe, for example, that Sarah (Winslet) would go over to the child molester in the park late at night to see if he is okay. I don't believe that Brad (Patrick Wilson) would stop to do skating tricks when Sarah is waiting for him in the park. And no, I don't believe that Larry (Noah Emmerich) would offer his condolences to the child molester regarding his mother's death. All of those things happening right at the end of the movie were unexpected. Unexpected isn't bad, but nothing prepared me for those characters doing those things.

What I did really like was the use of Will Lyman as the story's narrator. He's got a great voice, and the narrative technique actually worked very well. The ending itself doesn't resolve much, and I wondered if the narrator could have had a little more to add at the end. Have Brad and Sarah decided, what? Have they decided to return to their own lives? For Brad, does this mean he will actually buckle down and become a lawyer? How in the world does Sarah move forward in her marriage? I guess I don't understand how they go so far and commit to being together, but then, nope, guess not. I recognize that taking the step to "run away" is a huge one, but are we to believe that they weren't right for one another, that everything they did together was simply a fantasy?

Who are the little children? Are they Sarah and Brad and Larry -- and basically all the adults? I mean I don't know if any of the "adults" in this movie act like adults, other than maybe May (Phyllis Somerville), and even her final note to her son is "Be a good boy."

I noticed that a lot of reviewers seem to want to compare this to American Beauty; I wasn't really thinking of that when I watched it. I do agree that this one is so very close to being a masterpiece but maybe falls just short. For me, it may boil down to the ending... I don't know. It's one of those endings that, if it went exactly as I expected, maybe that wouldn't seem realistic? But my expectation would be that Larry and Ronnie (Jackie Earle Haley) have it out. Brad and Sarah go off together, and their spouses wake up the next day to figure out what they do next.

And by the way, why did Brad still have the note in his pocket that he wrote to his wife. That should have been left at the house... it didn't make sense that he would still have it with him...

"Digging for the Truth" Experiment #4 -- The Federalist Radio Hour

I first heard of Sean Davis last week. He created an online magazine called The Federalist in 2011, and he currently has about 500,000 followers on X. It was about last week that he posted something amazing. He suggested if the Supreme Court doesn't rule the way they should, not only should Trump just ignore the ruling, if they keep obstructing the administration, he should just dissolve the Court altogether. And I thought, wow. This guy is saying outrageous stuff like that, and there's an audience for it. So, I decided I'd listen to an episode of The Federalist podcast: April 17, 2025 -- Deportation, Due Process, and Deference to the American People (40 minutes) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/deportation-due-process-and-deference-to-the/id983782306?i=1000703904873 In the 40-minute conversation, the host and guest discussed why due process wasn't required for illegal immigrants. The case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia was mentioned for a brief second, but...

In Utero

In 1994, I wore my In Utero shirt to college. I’d walk down the hall, and people would look at the shirt. I still remember a professor looking at it, not apparently hip to the scene. She asked, “Bret, is there something you’re trying to tell us?” I had no idea what I was trying to say. Kurt Cobain had just shot his head off with a shotgun. Before that life-changing event, I hadn’t been the biggest fan of Nirvana, but I did recognize the immediate impact “Smells Like Teen Spirit” had on music, or at least on MTV. Nirvana had seemingly killed and buried Hair Metal, and they had done it single-handedly. What exactly was this “Alternative” sound? It was weird, because soon it felt like everything was “alternative,” and that didn’t make any sense. Once everything is the same, how can it be anything but standard, normal? Nirvana was okay, but at least at the time I was wearing the merch, I was much more into Offspring and Green Day and Tool. And that’s about as far as I went into...

I Must Betray You -- Ruta Sepetys

I appreciate the pacing. The author's epilogue includes her mission statement -- historical fiction as a way to keep history alive. Romanis is an obscure place, but she hopes people reading the book will take an interest in its history. She also makes the point that there are no clean endings. So, the evil dictator and his wife were killed, but the problems they created didn't magically go away, the country still had to find its way and move forward, and it was a process.

The Writer's Poke

Search This Blog