DVD of the Week: Little Children

This satiric suburban tragedy persistently threatened to become the sleeper Best Picture nominee of the past award season, but ultimately slid under the radar nabbing nods for Best Actress - Kate Winslet, Supporting Actor - Jackie Earle Haley, and Adapted Screenplay - Todd Field & Tom Perrotta nonetheless. It's chilly box office reception leads me to believe that most people have yet to see it and that's just a shame. Winslet stars opposite Patrick Wilson (Hard Candy, "Angels In America," those moronic gap ads where Claire Danes dances) as an emotionally depleted suburban housewife in pursuit of a soul awakening new experience that takes the shape of an affair with the father of her daughter's playmate (Wilson). That's only the half of it, though, as Haley stars too in the film's most captivating role - a former sex offender released from prison and finding suburbia to be as dismal a home as his jail cell. The former Bad News Bears child star is half-creepy, half-soulful in the role and turns it into a magnetic tour de force of uncertainty. The entire film fancies itself a boldly plotted look at suburban hypocrisy and the crass artifice of Middle America, and thankfully it succeeds on all counts. The performances are wonderful. Its screenplay is the perfect blend of jolting darkness and twisted bleak humor. Todd Field is even more masterful in directing this, his second feature, than he was the first time around with the also compelling In The Bedroom. One of the few flawless films of 06, this is a movie not to be missed.