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Little Children is a 2006 Academy Award and Golden Globe Award-nominated drama film directed by Todd Field, based on the novel of the same name by Tom Perrotta. It stars Kate Winslet, Jennifer Connelly, Patrick Wilson, Noah Emmerich and Jackie Earle Haley.
PlotSpoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Little Children takes place in fictional East Wyndham (Bennington in the book), an upper-middle class suburb of Boston, in the middle of a hot summer. [1] In this neighborhood, the lives of several seemingly unrelated characters intersect in surprising, and potentially dangerous, ways. More specifically, the film focuses on Sarah Pierce and Brad Adamson's affair and how it contrasts with their seemingly perfect exteriors.
Brad is now a stay at home dad to their young son while he waits to pass the bar exam after attempting it and failing twice. He feels emasculated by Kathy, who is the sole breadwinner of the family. Kathy goes as far as denying (more or less) Brad's request for a cell phone and circling his magazine subscriptions and asking if he needs them. She also sends him to the municipal library every day to study for the bar exam, though Brad never quite seems to make it. Instead, he watches a group of teenage skateboarders, entranced by their skill and their carefree youth, something he misses and possibly never had due to his own mother dying in a car accident when he was a young child. Meanwhile, Ronald James McGorvey (Jackie Earle Haley), who has served a prison sentence for indecent exposure to a girl scout , has been released and has moved back into the neighborhood to live with his mother. Larry Hudges (Noah Emmerich), a former police officer, launches a hate campaign against McGorvey, vandalizing, harassing, and even assaulting the man and his mother. Ronald's mother (Phyllis Somerville) desperately wants Ronald to go out on a date and meet women his own age. Ronald agrees to do this just one time, to make his mother happy, though he tells her that he doesn't desire women his own age (though he wished he did). The date is with a woman who has suffered from nervous breakdowns and has low self-esteem. Although it seems to progress well, it ends with Ronald masturbating in her car and threatening her, while she cries helplessly beside him. Larry Hudges convinces Brad to join a touch football league, which Brad does somewhat reluctantly. Brad finds himself reliving his college-football days of glory and is ecstatic to find an outlet outside of his house where his traditional "male-caregiver" role has been usurped by Kathy. Larry also gets Brad to join in his campaign against Ronald, just because Larry is his friend. Larry's loneliness and sadness is revealed, as well as the fact that he is responsible for the shooting of a young boy at a local shopping mall, after Larry mistook the boy's toy gun for a real one. Larry often takes out this aggression and anger on Ronald, the one person in the community who he views as being more disgusting than himself.
One night, after scoring the winning touchdown during a late-night football game, Brad is delighted to find Sarah up in the bleachers cheering him on. The two embrace, making out like teenagers on the football field after the game and Brad brushes off Larry who (desperate for friendship) wants to have a victory drink at the bar. Brad promises to meet Larry and never does. Instead, he asks Sarah to run away with him, insisting that she believes in him and their children are already comfortable with each other. Sarah agrees, both are frustrated by the fact that, although often together, they can so seldom touch each other. They agree to meet at the park the next night. Meanwhile Larry, angry and lonely over Brad standing up their victory drink, decides to take out his anger on Ronald once again, stepping up his harassment. With a megaphone in hand, he declares to the neighborhood (from the McGorvey's front lawn) that a sex offender is in their midst and must be stopped. The neighborhood residents come to their doors and beg Larry to stop, insisting that he is frightening their children. Mrs. McGorvey comes out to defend her son and attempts to wrestle the megaphone away from Larry. As a result, Mrs. McGorvey is pushed to the ground and has a heart attack, dying later in the hospital. Larry is taken in for questioning, but ultimately released feeling ashamed for what he did. Ronald, still in shock, brings his mother's belongings home from the hospital, including a note that she left for him that reads "Please be a good boy." Upon reading the note, Ronald is overwhelmed with sadness and anger at losing the one person who loved him, and smashes several items in the house. The time has come for Brad and Sarah to put their plan into action. Brad writes a note for Kathy and packs some items. He then goes into Aaron's bedroom and kisses the boy goodbye. Sarah takes Lucy, who refuses to sit in her car seat, and drives to the park to meet Brad just like they planned (though the fact that Sarah takes Lucy along but Brad does not take Aaron does not conform with the supposed advantage that the two children get along well). However, Brad never makes it to the park as he stops to watch the skateboarders who insist that Brad join them. They encourage him to use the skateboard, which he does. He attempts to make a jump over a set of stairs. Meanwhile, Sarah and Lucy are at the park when Ronald McGorvey runs in, crying hysterically. Sarah leaves her daughter on the swing-set to ask Ronald what's wrong. He informs her tearfully that his mother is dead. Sarah is sympathetic, but quickly panics when she turns around and finds that Lucy has disappeared. Frantic, Sarah runs into the street screaming Lucy's name. She eventually finds her daughter standing under a streetlight. Sarah tearfully puts Lucy into the car seat and breaks down, embracing her daughter and finally showing her affection and apologizing for her coldness. Sarah and Lucy go home. Larry comes into the park and finds Ronald crying. Feeling guilty for Mrs. McGorvey's death, Larry asks Ronald if he is okay and is horrified to discover that Ronald has castrated himself so that he can "be a good boy" as his mother wanted. Panicked, yet happy to prove himself a hero, Larry takes Ronald to the hospital. Meanwhile, Brad is lying on the ground, somewhat bruised after failing to make the jump on the skateboard and being unconscious for five minutes. The ambulance has arrived and one of the skateboarders hands Brad the note addressed to Kathy, indicating that he never left it for her. Brad says that he no longer needs it and asks a police officer to call his wife. We later see Kathy holding Brad's hand as they put him in the ambulance and Larry taking Ronald into the hospital. There is no clear resolution and the ending is somewhat ambiguous, it is still somewhat up in the air regarding Sarah and whether she will end up eventually leaving her husband, or if Ronald lives or dies as a result of the castration, however it is made clear Brad will not leave his wife. Spoilers end here.
CastMain Characters
Supporting Characters
AdaptationFor this film, director Todd Field and novelist Tom Perrotta intended to take the story in a separate and somewhat different direction than the novel. "When Todd and I began collaborating on the script, we were hoping to make something new out of the material, rather than simply reproducing the book onto film," says Perrotta on the film's official site. Differences between the book and film
Awards and nominationsWins
Awards & Nominations
Notes
See also
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