In "Little Children," Everyone Gets a Second Chance

Last night's film stayed with me for a long time. Todd Field's "Little Children" used a narrator, the sonorous Will Lyman, who set the stage from the opening scene, where a trio of gossiping, sniping suburban housewives in a park sat apart from a fourth young mother, who just didn't know how play the role of perfect mom. They all watched their kids, and all focused on "The Prom King," a stay-at-home dad who paraded in front of them making their tongues wag and wondering what the hell he was doing here.

The film followed the path of the adulterous young mother who couldn't get it right, and Lyman narrated from above, describing the little slice of heaven that she found every day at the pool in the company of the above-mentioned dad, an oasis from her terribly boring life at home with her husband, himself consumed with internet porn and long hours at the office. The pair obsess about each other, both unhappy at home, yet we know that running away is a fantasy more than anything that will really make them happy.

A third couple emerges, a grown son and mother, tragic, sad and dark. He's the town pedophile, a sex offender who is living near the dear little children, and each time he emerges he is shouted down and forced to retreat. At the movie's climax, an ill-fated plan to run away together becomes mired in complexities, and we find the confused mom waiting in a dark playground with the monster, weeping on the swings after the loss of his mother.

The story twists and turns and in the end, all of these sad characters get a second chance to live life as happier and less tortured souls.