Saturday Movie!

Tonight I watched "Little Children" by director Todd Field.

I have a bit of trivia. I lived in the same dorm as Todd my freshman year of college. He dated a girl named Sharon ( who was really good friends with a girl named Heather) who lived on my floor. He played trombone, he was cute, he was creative. We all lived in Diamond Hall, the "arts" dorm.....lots of people form the theatre, music and art concentrations. It wasn't a huge dorm, I lived on the ground floor, well the basement really, and we had maybe 16 girls on that floor...probably 20 tops on each of the other 3 floors.

Anyway, I never had much interaction with Todd, but my two close friends, Janet and Tricia knew him from theater classes. When Twister came out, we all recognized Todd as one of the scientist. Then he was the piano player in Eye Wide Shut. After that, the big break in directing In the Bedroom. Well, that's my brush with fame, I guess....not that he probably remembers any of us!

Now to the movie. It was different in that the movie was narrated, not by a character, but the author, if you will. It was third person narrative. Very different for a film, and it really worked. It helped give the characters depth in a few seconds.

It is about suburban life. Mothers who take the toddler to the park everyday and have not much to look forward to. Families who look perfect on the surface, but are not. Families who have apparent problems. Men and women, some crushed male egos, aching to be young. The film is touted as grown ups who haven't passed adolescence. Yes, that about sums it up. and there are a couple of scenes that you could have stuck in the middle of a teen film and yet it would no seem out of place in either. There's even the bully and the kid whose picked on.

I can't tell you too much or it gives it all away. If you like characters and observations of people you will enjoy this movie. I think I will find there was more to it that I saw tonight. It's always movies like this that catch me be surprise the next day!