the chutry experiment

I thought the tedium/sense of failure was signaled largely by allusions to things that are more fully developed in the book. (Obviously, that may well mean that the movie is less than satisfying . . .)

For example, in the book, Sarah's husband's retreat away from her into this ludicrous pornographic fantasy land is given much more play, and Sarah's sexual discontent is articulated right from the start.

Likewise, Brad's feeling of being railroaded into a career he's not especially suited for, by a wife who runs roughshod over him, is pretty straightforward.

I don't know if they think their lives are *failures*, but they do have the sense that something has gone terribly awry.

On a separate point, I *do* think that there's a "Connecticut mom" type, especially in the posh towns, that the movie nails. When we lived in West Hartford, there were three or four who regulated the 2 playgrounds nearest our apartment. A is still pretty good friends with them, but watching the movie took me right back to the first time the boy and I encountered them.

As I was thinking about the film this morning, I found myself wondering about the depiction of the spouses. Brad's wife (played by Jennifer Connelly) may be a little shrill, but the film seems generally sympathetic towards her. Sarah's husband disappears almost entirely during the second act, I think because the "ludicrous pornographic fantasy land" didn't seem to fit the tone of the film.

I didn't really read them as "failures," and that may have been language I picked up from A.O. Scott. But I was frustrated with the lack of background about why their careers had been derailed (especially Sarah's) or why things might have gone awry.

In terms of the Connecticut mom, I can see how the film might have nailed that type. Just found it potentially problematic that the film treated that type in what appeared to be such an ungenerous way.

I read the book with a bunch of suburban housewives, who, I'd say, were Connecticut mom wannabes. Their sympathies lay with the housewives and Brad's wife, not with Sarah or Brad. So that was interesting. In the book, I understand Sarah's need for escape pretty well. It made sense to me while it did not make sense to the women in my book club (which I'm no longer in :) ). I guess the "immorality" of her infidelity kept them from finding a way to empathize.

In the book, Brad comes off as feeling very trapped. In the movie, does he join the football team? Because I found that whole scenario quite pathetic, but somehow compelling. He didn't seem so much emasculated as just misunderstood. His wife was trying to turn him into a lawyer when maybe he should have been a high school football coach.

I guess I'm going to have to see the movie now. :)

He does join the football team, which is played to some extent as an attempt to regain lost glory. The film didn't seem to know quite what to do with his wife. It's clear that she is trying to turn him into a lawyer, but the film treats her fairly gently (which may not be a bad thing).

I certainly understand Sarah's need for escape given the constraints that seem imposed upon her, and I found her to be a sympathetic character. I think I mostly wonder about the use of suburbia as shorthand for the tedium that she and Brad feel. The film is interesting, better than my review suggests, so I'd love to know what others think.

what did you think of the narration in the film? we walked out of it in the theatre after a few minutes because GF couldn't stand how overbearingly ponderous it was. I don't mind an intrusive or omniscient narrator in fiction, but in a film it seemed contrived for reasons I couldn't discern. But then again we didn't give the film much of a chance.

I found the narration a little annoying, as if it belonged to a slightly different film. It could have worked had the film taken a slightly more satirical tone.

Apart from plot, is this a film about look and feel? I ask partly because Little Children (plus its trailer) could be read from the perspective of mood manipulation. This angle comes to me curtously of an orthogonal route (reading Anne Galloway's Purse Lips Square Jaw) where she points to the work of geographer Nigel Thrift. Nigel Thrift's argument that a series of affective technologies that were previously used in the corporate sphere to work on consumer anxiety, obsession and compulsion are now being moved over into the political sphere. How might this explain some of the tone setting at work in the film?

On narration and voice over: "Madame Bovary c'est moi" said at some point Gustave Flaubert. worth considering as to who identifies with who.

It's just that the tone setting seemed to go in at least two directions at once--the direction of the voiceover (droll, snide) and the direction of the narrative (sympathetic). Of course, the two aren't mutually exclusive. I do think the central point of identification is with the Kate Winslet character (the Emma Bovary stand in). Interesting that this film review has inspired more comments than usual.

And from the Chutry Experiment archives (August 2004)
quote...
I'm concerned that I will end up sounding like the treacly Daniel Stern voice-over from the TV show, The Wonder Years, rather than being able to offer the meaningful or humorous observations
...quote

Voice-over and illusions of identity formation.... ?!!

Oh, there's definitely a connection. With "Little Children," of course, the v/o is ostensibly objective, belonging to a character who never appears in the film (much like Alec Baldwin's v/o in The Royal Tenenbaums), while in my case, I'm talking about narrating my own experiences, which complicates that notion of "identity formation" to some extent.