Little Children

From The Movie Snob

Little Children (B). This movie covers somewhat the same ground as American Beauty (adultery in suburbia), but I thought it was a much better film -- less self-consciously arty, more true-to-life. Kate Winslet stars as Sarah Pierce, an unhappy stay-at-home mother of a three-year-old girl who spends part of every weekday at a little park with other stay-at-home mothers. A handsome stay-at-home husband, dubbed The Prom King by the women, starts to show up at the park with his son, and before too long he and Sarah embark on an affair. In a subplot, a squirrelly creep named Ronald James McGorvey has just moved into the neighborhood after serving two years for indecent exposure to a minor. An out-of-work cop makes it his personal mission to warn everybody about the pervert in their midst, with unforeseen consequences. Good performances from everyone, especially Winslet and Jackie Earle Haley as the pathetic McGorvey. (Haley played the tough, motorcycle-riding kid Kelly in the original Bad News Bears, but I did not recognize him at all.)