Little Children (2006)

Most movies based on novels simply can't touch the quality of the source material -- in fact, I can only think of a couple of films that improve upon it. What this means is that you can only really enjoy those movies you've not yet read. Weirdly, I find that seeing a movie before reading the book doesn't damage the my literary experience in the least. What usually happens is that my appreciation of the story expands as I discover, on pages, the extra stuff that wouldn't fit on screen.

From what I've heard, I get the feeling that I might have really hated this movie if I'd read the book first, so I'm glad I didn't. This suburb-bashing comedy/drama is wonderfully acted, desperately real, and often extremely funny. I was a big fan of the narration -- as though certain passages of the movie were being read aloud to me -- it just worked.

Still, there were a few scenes that didn't quite work and a few things I didn't quite get. All in all, though, a quality film that gave us plenty of discussion material for our post-movie meal.

B+