Texas Book Festival and Tom Perrotta Present Little Children
We have a big crush on Tom Perrotta. We lurve the tales he crafts about ordinary people who end up in extraordinary predicaments because they just can't seem to bring themselves to say what they are thinking, even when knowing that it would save them a boat load of grief. We identify with being well-intentioned but sometimes ill-advised and from time to time believe that our own inner monologue is actually the narration for a tragicomedy fit for book pages and movie screens. We also think that the timeline of Perrotta's life is hilarious. Seriously, the man wrote an essay entitled "The Cosmic Significance of Britney Spears" for crying out loud! Two of his books have been turned into screenplays that we are smitten with: Little Children, which he adapted for the screen and received a Golden Globe and Oscar nod for, and Election, which was adapted by the critical darling Alexander Payne. And, Perrotta just happens to be pretty cute, which only fuels out schoolgirl-like excitement about his appearance at the Texas Book Festival this weekend, which is being co-sponsored by the Austin Film Festival.
In view of the November release of his highly anticipated sixth novel, The Abstinence Teacher, Perrotta will be chatting at the Texas State Capitol House Chambers on Saturday afternoon and then will pop over to the newly opened Alamo Ritz Saturday night, where he will be signing his books and answering questions from AFF director Barbara Morgan, as well as the audience prior to a screening of Little Children. If you haven't seen the film yet (or read the book, for that matter) we suggest that you make it out for this one. We loved this film when it came out in 2006 and think that you will too. For a full review of the film, keep reading after the jump.
There must be more than this provincial life, right? In Todd Field's film adaptation of Perrotta's novel/screenplay Little Children, cleverly narrated by Will Lyman, we find ourselves in our future world (well, maybe not our future world, but the future world of someone who is very wealthy): the perfect suburb, the perfect house, the perfect child, the perfect playground. But all that glitters is so often not gold and this little bubble of classic Americana is no exception.
Sarah (Kate Winslet, whose work received an Oscar Nomination for Best Actress) and Brad(Patrick Wilson) meet behind a swing set amidst a Greek chorus of snack-mongering, sex-scheduling soccer moms. The three stroller motors sit in tense anticipation of winning their treacherous bet: five dollars says that bookish Sarah doesn't have the guts to get this "prom king's" phone number. But what she gets in lieu of the phone number is much more than she had bargained for: an unexpected kiss that opens Pandora's suburban box, revealing the possibility that her soul strangling feminist-grad-school-intellectual-cum-housewife existence may not be all the world has in store for her.
The affair begins slowly, intellectually and emotionally at first between banal outings to the pool, the football field, and the dinner table, but inevitably the physical follows. Sarah is no match for Brad's "knockout" wife Kathy (Jennifer Connelly) in the looks department, but she doesn't nag him about the bar exam or bills, so she becomes his solace from the emasculating storm at home. Plus, their children are the same age, which makes frisky playdates that much more convenient.
Amidst their canoodling, Ronnie (Jackie Earl Haley, who was also nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for this role and he was Kelly in 70's throwback The Bad News Bears!), a convicted pedophile, has moved back into the neighborhood, to the horror of many. Fliers warning of his presence are duct taped to his front door, as if paper and ink could somehow bandage the very deep cut he represents in their community. Frighteningly, Ronnie's mother May (Phyllis Somerville) believes that she can rehabilitate her son by finding him a good woman through the personal adds. The one date that Ronnie goes on will haunt us forever.
In the end, what makes the film so powerful and disturbing is the juxtaposition of the very public ridicule that Ronnie faces and the painfully private contempt that Brad and Sarah must hold for themselves. While Ronnie is branded with "EVIL" on his front stoop for all the world to see, the couple must wear their own scarlet "A" on their hearts. Even more surprising is that we feel compassion for both cases; that perhaps their sins are not deadly, but so heart-achingly human. This is not a film about cheating or pedophiles or the dangers of suburban malaise, but about flaws, judgment and reconciling our fantasies with truth. And in the end, nothing is what we dreamt it could, would or should be.
Tom Perrotta screens Little Children
Saturday, November 3rd
Alamo Ritz
7pm, $10
[Tickets / Info]
