Movies: Those Sexy, Scary Suburbs

Little Children is an unsettling exploration of the joys--or otherwise--of young family life

Brad (Patrick Wilson) is a house husband, sweetly raising his adorable little son and pretending to study for the bar exam while his wife (Jennifer Connelly) makes documentary films to pay their mortgage. Sarah (Kate Winslet) is overeducated for this neighborhood and restless in other ways as well. Her husband is way too devoted to Internet porn, and she finds her daughter can be a pesky nuisance.

Given that setup, you imagine--quite correctly--that good old-fashioned suburban adultery is the long-fused time bomb waiting to explode in Little Children. But before you give your been-there-done-that shrug, and well before Brad and Sarah...

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