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Created Sep 15, 2007 05:22AM PST • Edited May 08, 2013 07:21AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   Post-feminist Bovary: Closely observed, brilliantly crafted tale of suburban angst, full of knowing looks, requited lust, and post-modern self-awareness.

4. Acting

   Really Great 4.5

   The male half – and primary parent – of a stunning couple (Patrick Wilson and Jennifer Connelly) hooks up with a bored mom (Kate Winslet) who occupies a lower orbit of hotness. Therefore she obsesses on him, while he whiles away his life by looking for the next game and the next thrill, foolhardy pursuits at which he’s tragically gifted.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

   Great grin, strapping smooth body, throws a decent spiral: Patrick Wilson easily fills the role of ex-college quarterback failing the transition into adulthood. Not nearly as smart as his wife or his lover, but everybody’s favorite guy to have around, a lucky man who is both Guy’s Guy and catnip to the ladies.

6. Female Stars Perfect 5.0

   Kate Winslet in another classically executed Kate Winslet role: smart, panicked by life, not superhot but gets carnal with a superhot guy – Patrick Wilson here, Leo D. in Titanic. This very British actress proves her range yet again by delivering a perfectly executed flat American brogue, making her sound completely the Yank. In this very American role she even cheers the handsome quarterback after he scores on a breakaway, following which he scores with her on the field under the lights. Sis, boom, bah.

   Jennifer Connelly, also a masterful actress along with being the thinking man’s hottie, cheers on her man in a different, more hectoring way.

7. Female Costars Perfect 5.0

   Phyllis Somerville, she of the extensive Law & Order family resume, delivers a poignant mother-of-the-predatory-freak performance.

8. Male Costars Perfect 5.0

   Jackie Earle Haley perfectly inhabits the sick fuck momma’s boy who obsesses on other children even though he’s long since grown into a man’s body. While the finely tuned moral relativism of Little Children makes him ultimately pitiable, to its credit it never flinches from his self-indulgent odiousness.

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    Todd Field co-wrote the screenplay with Tom Perrotta from Perrotta’s novel. The movie plays as a less dark cross between American Beauty and Blue Velvet. All three plumb the sexual depths coursing within apparently placid American communities.

11. Direction Really Great 4.5

    The young auteur Todd Field delivers in Little Children his second closely observed masterpiece, the first being 2001’s In the Bedroom. A legitimate triple threat – brilliant writer, disciplined director, successful actor – Field qualifies as an Orson Welles for our own diminished Hollywood era.

12. Play Really Great 4.5

    Understated dialogue builds to several peaks and even delivers a couple of laugh-out-loud moments. The whole story unfolds within the mundane confines of a suburban village, so any excitement is downright interesting. Sweaty assignations amongst the otherwise married surely qualifies, and is presented in a way that is both surprising to the lovers and plausible to the viewer.

    Perhaps the most impressive quality of the script is that each character is well and truly introduced before they make an appearance on film, so that when you finely do see the hectoring wife or the self-satisfying husband or the menacing sex offender, you have to reconcile their visual appearance with the already painted mental picture. Smart and engaging, that.

13. Music Good 3.0

14. Visuals Great 4.0

    Closely observed and tightly cropped: nothing fancy, just the basics well done, as evidenced by the crisply constructed trailer.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 2.7

    Violence more threatened than actualized.

17. Sex Erotic 3.0

18. Violence Fierce 2.2

19. Rudeness Profane 3.0

21. Reality

    Glib 1.7

    A bunch of 30 and 40 something guys play in a rough and tumble football league. Dubious on its face, and speaking of faces, they don’t even wear mouth guards. I don’t think so. Not in this man’s world.

22. Circumstantial Glib 2.0

23. Biological Glib 2.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0