Little Children

Sarah (Kate Winslet) is a stay-at-home mother whose life is already feeling rut-like and unfulfilling, something that is exacerbated when she catches her husband Richard (Greg Edelman) masturbating in his home office with an unfamiliar pair of women’s underwear tied to his face. Part of Sarah’s daily routine involves going to the park with her three year old daughter Lucy, where Sarah sits slightly apart from the other mothers, due to their constant judgement at how much better they are at caring for their children than Sarah. They all idolise a man named Brad (Patrick Wilson), their male equivalent who brings his young son Aaron to the same park. On a bet, Sarah introduces herself to Brad, and the two soon find the company of the other fulfils something missing in their own lives. Meanwhile, convicted sex offender Ronnie (Jackie Earle Haley), who was arrested for exposing himself to children, has been released from prison and moved back in with his mother, May (Phyllis Somerville). Many members of the community are uncomfortable having Ronnie living in such close proximity, especially former policeman Larry (Noah Emmerich), who makes ruining Ronnie’s life his own personal obsession.
little-children
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Apologies for the lack of update last week, I hadn’t written any reviews and I was too engrossed in season 2 of The Wire to get anything else done. Now I’ve finished that season, so it’s the perfect opportunity for me to discuss it, spoiler-free of course.
Season two is essentially known as the “Docks” season, or the “Cannot Live Up To The Greatness Of Season One” season, but it also felt a lot like the “Setting Up Lots Of Elements And Putting Them In Place For The Future At The Expense Of The Season’s Overall Quality” season. Initially I didn’t much care for the entire docks side of the story, as it at least partially side-lined the more interesting and engaging characters and storylines from the previous season. Also, I felt it took too long to resolve how some characters ended up last time around, and get them into a position where they could interact with this season’s plot, and that come the climax the writers were so eager to get out of this season and onto the next one that they threw everything together in the last episode or two, cramming in as much as possible to get it over and done with, which I found very unsatisfying. Still, I liked the introduction of some of the new characters, like Beadie Russell (Amy Ryan, an actress I’ve been keeping an eye out for since she blew me away in Gone Baby Gone) and Frank Sabotka (Chris Bauer). And whilst this season wasn’t as good as the first, it was still very compelling, and I’ve heard season 3 is possibly even better than the first, although I might take a little break and watch a season of something else, just to space it out. Fortunately The Walking Dead starts again this week, and The Night Of is available streaming on Sky, and I’ve heard great things about that. Look for my thoughts on those soon. In the mean time, here’s what I watched this past two weeks:
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