Little Children (2006)

All Critics (157) | Top Critics (44) | Fresh (131) | Rotten (35) | DVD (18)

Little Children is disturbing and smart and the best satire of modern American suburbia since American Beauty.

January 5, 2007 Full Review

Roger Moore

Orlando Sentinel

Top Critic

Well-acted and meticulously crafted, Little Children can feel less like a full-blooded representation of life than a disquieting literary exercise.

January 5, 2007

Robert Denerstein

Denver Rocky Mountain News

Top Critic

I didn't like any of these characters, but I kept pulling for them anyway -- right up to the shock-o-riffic ending, when I felt I'd been sucker-punched.

January 5, 2007 Full Review

Jim Emerson

Chicago Sun-Times

Top Critic

As in Field's first film, the characters are drawn with such compassion their follies become our own and their desires seem as vast as the night sky.

January 5, 2007 Full Review

J. R. Jones

Chicago Reader

Top Critic

Little Children includes all the clichéd scenarios of a midday TV sudser, but they're ratcheted up several seedy degrees.

January 4, 2007 Full Review

Kathy Cano Murillo

Arizona Republic

Top Critic

A beautifully observed, profoundly moving tale of suburban malaise.

January 4, 2007

Colin Covert

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Top Critic

More than just another dissection of suburban sexual frustration, its concern with children, parents and those of us who lie somewhere in-between make Little Children a minor masterpiece.

April 27, 2012 Full Review

Film4

It's not necessarily a cautionary tale, but more a look within a surface utopia that doesn't really exist.

February 9, 2011 Full Review

Jeff Otto

ReelzChannel.com

As commentary on our time, it may be accurate. As movie drama, it isn't so much overheated as reheated in the microwave on high.

July 6, 2010 Full Review

A.S. Hamrah

Boston Phoenix

Its antiseptic textures merely whimper 'Oscar clip'

August 28, 2009 Full Review

Fernando F. Croce

CinePassion

Bereft of a protagonist, the movie breaks down under the weight of absurd voice-over narration and an exploitative ending that is as indefensibly wrongheaded as it is cheap.

April 24, 2009 Full Review | Comments (2)

Cole Smithey

ColeSmithey.com

Blame Field (remember, Perrotta also wrote the knifelike Election), for facing the material too squarely.

August 7, 2008 Full Review

Jonathan Kiefer

Sacramento News & Review

Mature story of suburban fear and yearning.

July 16, 2008 Full Review

Cynthia Fuchs

Common Sense Media

A risky and rewarding art film, but definitely for grown-ups.

June 24, 2008 Full Review

Geoff Berkshire

Metromix.com

Little Children is about as close as a movie can get to literature %u2014 rich, nuanced, erudite and multi-layered.

February 28, 2008 Full Review

Brandon Fibbs

BrandonFibbs.com

The leads are self-delusional, secretive, dependent, nakedly desperate at times, and all fascinating.

December 10, 2007 Full Review

Karina Montgomery

Cinerina

The film is populated with such self-obsessed, distasteful characters, it's hard to care how or why any of them finds happiness.

July 14, 2007 Full Review

Joe Lozito

Big Picture Big Sound

Provides a taut commentary on hypocrisy, human interaction, and the lies we tell ourselves...

July 11, 2007 Full Review

Felix Vasquez Jr.

Cinema Crazed

predstavlja upravo ono %u0161to bi "ozbiljni" holivudski film trebao biti

June 22, 2007 Full Review

Dragan Antulov

Index.hr

[The] narrator talks as if he were reading from a children's storybook. This bold stylistic choice bathes the film in a sarcastic light, challenging you either to laugh at its darker moments or regard the entire thing as a put-on.

June 15, 2007 Full Review

Eric Melin

Scene-Stealers.com

Peyton Place with a perv!

May 2, 2007 Full Review | Comments (2)

Kam Williams

EURWeb

What actually felt more like a play to me because it was so passive and restrained, showcases some amazing talent.

May 1, 2007 Full Review

Diana Saenger

ReviewExpress.com

A suburban soap opera set in Anywhere, Massachusetts and spoiled by its narrator, Will Lyman, whose distinct voice you will undoubtedly recognize if you're familiar with such PBS series as Frontline and Nova.

April 29, 2007 Full Review

Kam Williams

Mount Desert Islander

"I don't like sharks, they eat you up," says Patrick Wilson's son at one point, not only foreshadowing the embarrassing Jaws riff at the town pool but explaining the unpleasantly self-devouring nature of the film itself.

April 28, 2007 Full Review

Ed Gonzalez

Slant Magazine

• 1. Mary Ann: Oh that's nice. So now cheating on your husband makes you a feminist?
  2. Sarah Pierce: No, no, no. It's not the cheating. It's the hunger - the hunger for an alternative and the refusal to accept a life of unhappiness.
  – Submitted by Samira O (8 months ago)
• 1. Sarah Pierce: My professors would kill me for even thinking this, but, in her own strange way Emma Bovary is a feminist.
  2. Mary Ann: Oh, that's nice. So now, cheating on your husband makes you a feminist.
  3. Sarah Pierce: No, no, no. It's not the cheating. It's the hunger. The hunger for an alternative and the refusal to accept a life of unhappiness.
  – Submitted by Raj G (14 months ago)
• 1. May McGorvey: There. You look handsome. She won't be dissapointed
  2. Ronnie J. McGorvey: Wait'll she hears about my criminal record
  3. May McGorvey: I don't think you need to get into that just yet. Why don't you stick to small talk?
  – Submitted by Juan F (15 months ago)
• 1. Sarah Pierce: How pretty is she?
  2. Brad Adamson: A knockout...
  3. Brad Adamson: Beauty is overratted, Sarah.
  – Submitted by Juan F (15 months ago)
• 1. Ronnie J. McGorvey: I'm Good Now...
  – Submitted by Kylie H (2 years ago)

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