"No, no, no. It's not the cheating. It's the hunger - the hunger for an alternative and the refusal to accept a life of unhappiness."
Sarah Pierce
Little Children
2006
What is the difference between success at home and success on the job? What seems to be the dividing factor of attention and acknowledgment? In the film Little Children, Sarah is a mother postponing her research for her doctorate in English, and Brad is a father reluctantly studying for the bar exam. Sarah, played by Kate Winslet is a woman scorned by other women in which her children used to play with, when the man they all goggle at becomes her heated passion.
Brad is played by Patrick Wilson, and is a stay at home dad who watches his wife balance her career with her love of motherhood, while the balance of Brad and the marriage is sexless and empty. When Sarah and Brad unite, the home of unhappy marriages becomes their reality, and they passionately find themselves intertwined with acceptance and sexual escapades from which lacks in both of their marriages.
The question in this is; is this appropriate or is it too cliche?
We see this sort of thing occur far too often in life, we see the love of scorn in marriages that are struggling emotionally to rekindle that passion.
The loved feel unloved, and the over-loved feel smothered. It is most appropriate to acknowledge that human beings are soul seekers and satisfaction junkies. Human beings are people with selfish tendencies and idealistic values that enlist the need to be touched. But, has the reality of ones unhappiness confidently portrayed invaluable when given the premise for true companionship?
The catalyst to this story is the children. The catalyst to this story is the premise of a man that imagines a world with no responsibility, and gets caught up in the attention from a hindered sexual confident woman.
When the temptation and vulnerable states collide, Sarah and Brad are inevitably shaking things up in suburbia, and the mixing the make up of supporting characters with whom are unconsciously intertwined.
On the topic of emotional infidelity, is it worse off than physical infidelity? Who's to say that one is succumbed by another, and who's to say one outweighs the other in regards to scandalous escapades. Once the emotional becomes the physical, has it gone too far, or has it just began? The dramatic twist to this tale is that Brad's character is attentively attracted to Sarah's attention, her lust towards him, her desire to be sexually driven, yet, in all actuality he isn't attracted to her physically.
Does it have to be a physical connection to constitute an emotional affair?
I question and ponder the idea that when ones so low and so incoherent to their surroundings, they can become so strong and attentive to their environment. Proximity is the catalyst to infidelity, lover's remorse is the catalyst to realizing you didn't need another to fill the void, you may have just needed a distraction to erase the void.
Either way, when do adults start acting like children when it comes to wanting what one wants, and wanting it right now?
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bobbot
Alpha Whiskey
Gary Gladstone
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Dennis Knight
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Salon.com
Comments
Rated.
Having been married and divorced twice -- and finding myself on the bad end of the "sexless" marriage -- I definitely feel for a lot of the emotions both lead characters feel.
Thanks Thoth!!
Julie.. you are funny. You are so great. Thanks,
redwriter34... that is the trick, comparing the book to the film and the film doing the book justice. Thanks for your comment. That was personal and helped others see the message. Appreciate you stopping by.