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There’s nothing more American than leafy, middle class suburbia, so it’s no wonder filmmakers like scratching the manicured, picket-fenced, perfectly coiffed lives of happily married couples and finding that juicy vein of longing and repressed sexuality. American Beauty is the modern standard bearer, but Little Children did it too, albeit without the humor or desire to be liked. Little Children is like a term paper with full frontal nudity. This precise dissection of a man and a woman hesitantly, but thoroughly, escaping suburban norms is filled with sly observations and heavy thoughts.

It’s directed by Todd Field, who some will remember as the piano player in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. But Field is a heavyweight director who, if he keeps going, will someday create a masterpiece. His first film, 2001’s In the Bedroom, earned five Oscar nominations. Little Children earned three, including a Best Actress nod for Kate Winslet. According too IMDB, Field has nothing in the pipeline, which is a shame. Maybe he’s taking the Kubrick route, or even the PT Anderson route, of sporadic output that’s always worth the wait.

Winslet plays Sarah, who lives a privileged life in a Massachusetts suburb. She spends her days at the park with other pretty mothers and their pretty babies. The trappings of her life are to be envied, but she’s unsatisfied. Not actively unsatisfied, it’s more a haze of disenfranchisement from the life she should be enjoying but, for some reason, isn’t. Or, as the omnipotent, sociologically inclined narrator says, Sarah is “a researcher studying the behavior of typical suburban women, not a typical suburban woman.”

Into the park one day strolls handsome, athletic Brad, the only man who takes his child to the park. Christened the “prom king” by the moms in the park, they wonder about him, but only Sarah has the guts to say something. Or maybe she sees an opening, a chance to explore whatever she feels is missing in her life. For Sarah, an affair with Brad is a no-brainer. Her husband wears a sweater on his shoulders like a prep school kid and is addicted to Internet porn. But what are Brad’s motivations? He’s married to Kathy (Jennifer Connelly), a filmmaker who is prettier than Sarah. But Kathy is the family’s breadwinner, and for Brad, being a stay-at-home dad who twice failed the bar exam, isn’t very manly. So the stage is set for two people to expose the disappointments in each other’s life and offer a remedy.

In these communities, the gates are psychological, not physical. Sex is something that happens behind closed doors with the spouse or, if the spouse isn’t around, at the office. But Ronnie’s (Jackie Earle Haley) sexual desires are known to everyone. Ronnie is a pedophile that served time for indecent exposure. He now lives nearby with his elderly mother. The townsfolk aren’t thrilled with having a pedophile in a town filled with children and their reaction is understandable and shameful. Ronnie wants to get better, but that doesn’t mean he can. It doesn’t help and an ex-cop (Noah Emmerich) has taken it upon himself to patrol the neighborhood with the purpose of getting Ronnie to move somewhere else.

With all these goings-on, it’s no surprise that the little children of the film’s title are not the kids. No one plays games like adults, especially when they’ve had decades to slowly, inexorably screw up their lives, only to find the correctives even more dangerous. Writer Tom Perrotta wrote the original novel and has no reason to complain about the screen adaptation because he co-wrote it. The movie has the emotional scrupulousness of a novel, and even takes its thematic cues from a novel, Madame Bovary, with its similar heroine in an unhappy marriage. In crafting what is essentially a novel on film, Field creates a work that not easily embraceable, but the truth rarely is.

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

The film’s theatrical aspect ratio 2.35:1 is presented in anamorphic video. I don’t remember DP Antonio Calvache getting much praise for his work, but the DVD reminded me how rich and colorful the movie is. The transfer is plenty sharp, although some longer shots are a smidge soft. Small object detail is great; for instance, I could see that Kathy was reading Children of Grief in bed even though it was a close-to-medium shot. There’s a pan down a bookcase and I could read some of the book titles, but heroic amounts of detail would have allowed me to read more. Finely grained textures and flesh tones are also above average. The exterior daytime scenes are the most impressive from a DP standpoint and the transfer honors them nicely. The scenes in the park are rich and bright, with intense greens and reds. Contrast and black levels are excellent. The nighttime exteriors on the football field and the playground are freakily good. However, some of the nighttime driving scenes with Brad and Larry start to betray grain. I didn’t notice any edge halos and the print is basically spotless, although there’s a rare white speck on a shot of the blue sky. I would actually love to see this on a hi-def disc.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

Ambition and scope are limited on the English Dolby Digital 5.1 track, but it still sounds pretty good. Except for the pool scenes and the nighttime chirping of crickets, there’s not much chance for the surrounds to kick in.  Dialogue is very warm and natural, except in the exterior rain scene, where it’s thin. But that seems more a function of the production audio than any transfer deficiencies. The narration is deep and tranquil. The score has the hallmarks of a Thomas Newman work: tinkly and delicate, rendered with nice detail. Bass only has an opportunity to come through during thunderclaps and other random moments. Overall, the track doesn’t have much punch, but it’s not meant to. It’s completely appropriate for the movie.

There’s also an English Dolby Surround 2.0 track and English and Spanish subtitles.

Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

The only extras are short promos for The New World, A Prairie Home Companion, and A History of Violence. A bit disappointing.