In Todd Field's Little Children, the screen adaptation of the novel by Tom Perrotta, it's clear that the children in question are not those in the strollers, but the ones pushing them. Children is a story of suburban dissatisfaction. The intelligent and repressed Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet) is a young mother trapped in a world of pastel twin sets and ritualized snack times. One day on the playground, Sarah crosses paths with Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson), a young and attractive stay-at-home dad. An ex-college football star, Brad is dubbed the "Prom King" by the bored housewives who ogle him from across the jungle gym. Sarah and Brad are not unconsciously bored, but consciously unfulfilled. Their stories, combined with those of others' in the community, intersect to reveal a hunger for true happiness that exists outside the bounds of white picket fences. Field's depictions of characters do not invite judgment. His complex portrait of the town pedophile (Jackie Earle Haley) is one of many instances in which flaws, failures and frustrations evoke sympathy rather than condemnation. The portrayal of the adult as child is not meant to condescend, but to humanize. Although voiceovers often detach a viewer from a film, in Little Children, the voiceover enhances Field's message of parent as child. The voice is deep and omniscient, as if narrating a National Geographic documentary about the rituals of the suburban upper-middle class. Paradoxically, this image of the characters as something more primitive, or non-human, is exactly what compels us to appreciate their humanity. Much like Field's 2001 psychological drama In the Bedroom, Little Children is a quiet yet deeply unsettling film about the human condition. Instead of grief and revenge, Children explores the internal struggle between our ideal and our reality. It would seem that by the end of Little Children most of the characters have grown up a bit. Thanks to Field's ambiguity, whether or not that's a good thing is for us to decide.

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