disjointed film review

I watched Little Children tonight. There were some good moments but also some really junky ones. I'd say it was a 3.5 star film. I was expecting this to be a fairly bland 'indie' film, and until the near end I felt that it was. Instead, I decided it was one of the darker films I've seen lately. I'd recommend it for people who like watching films about human isolation and middle America despair.

The film had an odd narration bit to it. At times I enjoyed the narration. The style is as if you are watching a nature documentary, and it sometimes worked well with looking into the thoughts and worlds of these people. Other times it came off as forced and hokey.

There is a disturbing scene of the indecent exposer man at the pool, swimming with his scuba gear so he can look at the children underwater. Atypical of your standard romance/drama film. Then the way they end the scene, with the man stranded in the middle of the pool, swimming underwater, makes you feel his isolation and almost feel bad for him if you weren't so disgusted with him. A very powerful scene...until you see him later in the film at the end of his blind date. Holy Shit. It's certainly no coincidence that the crier from Happiness was his blind date. Overall the film did a great job straddling the sympathy/disgust divide the viewer feels for the character.

The film does a decent job of showing how truly disconnected people are from one another, no matter how close in physical proximity they may be. It also shows how in the end, people return to the comfort zone because its easy. The Madame Bovary comparison was a good one for the film to incorporate. People can choose to live the simple yet unsatisfying life they have, or they can choose to struggle. Sadly, to me, neither one sounds very pleasurable but at least with the struggle a person is paying attention to who they are.

I particularly enjoyed the last line:

You couldn't change the past, but the future could be a different story. And it had to start somewhere.