I truly think Little Children may be the most underrated film of the year. It's a story about the world of stay-at-home parents who meet at a suburban playground, and the extra-marital affairs and social intrigue that take place over the course of the summer, under the specter of child molester who has returned to the neighborhood. Kate Winslet is one of the five women nominated for seemingly every best actress award this year, for her performance as Sarah, a young mother feeling trapped in her house with her daughter, desperate for any brief escape. Patrick Wilson is Brad, a father whose emasculating wife sends him to the library to study for the bar exam every night, while instead he sits on a bench watches kids doing skateboard tricks. Jackie Earle Haley also got an Oscar nomination for playing Ronnie the child molester, whose sinister presence looms over the neighborhood from the fliers with his picture posted on every available surface.
I had no idea what to expect going in, but Little Children completely grabbed me with the frustrations of Sarah and Brad in the tiny, petty universe in which they find themselves trapped, and Jackie Earle Haley's presence as the simultaneously creepy and pathetic Ronnie and his persecution by a deranged local cop was surprisingly engrossing. It's a fascinating story about adults trying to live out juvenile fantasy, particularly in the case of Brad, dubbed “The Prom King” by the local mothers, joins a football team to moonlight as the star quarterback with Sarah as his adoring groupie. Eventually it all has to end, and this makes for a great drama. The film also makes use of an omniscient narrator, which I usually despise, but in this case it provides another perspective on the dramatic events of the film: the narrator's dramatic voice-over commentary, while completely serious in its insights into the characters, is absolutely hilarious. This over the top dramatic device ironically allows the misadventures of Brad and Sarah to be as much comedy as they are drama. And I loved every frame of it. Although I do think it's weird that every time I see Patrick Wilson in a film there's castration and child molestation involved...
Peter O'Toole apparently was a bit disgruntled at receiving a lifetime achievement Oscar, because he said he considers himself very much still in the game, and while Venus may not be his most inspiring work to date, it does prove his point. I really the idea explored in Venus that all the great iconic images of the female form in art all began with a live model who belched and drooled in her sleep like the rest of us. Jodie Whittaker's first appearance as inspiration slurping up a pot noodle captures this perfectly. Peter O'Toole plays Maurice, an aged actor who becomes obsessed with his friend's great-niece Jessie, a pretty low-class young woman whose exasperated family tried to shuffle her off to her ancient great-uncle Ian. The vapid Jessie wolfs down chips while proclaiming her aims at a modeling career, but Maurice's slightly creepy obsession makes him the first person to see something truly transcendently wonderful in her, including her own mother. Leslie Phillips, and Richard Griffiths round out Maurice's circle of friends of fussy and crude old men, and Vanessa Redgrave is great as his ex-wife. Venus really does get into my favorite thing about the world, the moments of shocking beauty that emerge when you find the right angle to view them from, and the way even a complete chav like Jessie is no less a woman for it, with all that implies.
Finally, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story, was Michael Winterbottom's attempt at filming the supposedly unfilmable post-modern novel, so necessarily it stars Steve Coogan as the director and star of another attempt to film the novel. It moves smoothly from actual scenes from the novel, moving past the cameras of the film within a film to follow the actors into the chaos surrounding the film production, concluding in the screening room where a disappointed cast and crew are underwhelmed by Steve Coogan's film. Completely bizarre, obviously, but very funny in a literary nerd sort of way. And it's nice to see Gillian Anderson again and know she survived the X-Files. I just caught it because of its BAFTA nomination, but I was certainly glad I did.
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