There are movies tailor-made for Burger King tie-ins. Little Children (whose central characters include two adulterers, a porn addict and a pedophile) is not one of them.
Still, I suspect Todd Field's follow-up to the Oscar-nominated, 2001 indie-drama In The Bedroom will be a hit. And it will do well thanks to that most ancient form of promotion: word of mouth.
Jennifer Connelly and newcomer Patrick Wilson play Kathy and Brad, an apparently perfect couple, raising their only son in a Massachusetts suburb.
Kate Winslet is one of their neighbours, so is Jackie Earle Haley (who, three decades ago, played the charming runt, Moocher, in Breaking Away). Slowly, very slowly, these lives become entwined, with mothering - good, bad and indifferent - the common thread.
Thanks to the suburban setting, Little Children will almost certainly be compared to American Beauty; but the script (based on a novel by Tom Perrotta) actually takes far more risks. No free spirits rise above the fray in this story; no up-tight wives sink to the dregs.
As becomes increasingly clear, all of the characters are damaged goods - all of these "adults" are, to varying degrees, stunted children, trapped in bodies they barely understand.
Ignore the implausible sub-plot about a pent-up cop. Ignore the slight unevenness of tone and the fact that Winslet - playing an averagely-attractive, nay "boyish", housewife - has never looked more glowing or womanly. Little Children has sex on the brain. More importantly, it's a brainy movie about sex, one that makes you glad you're old enough to enjoy it.
Little Children, tomorrow and Thursday. The London Film Festival runs until 2 November. Information: 020 7928 3232 www.lff.org.uk.
Little Children
