Passion and power games play out beneath the still surface of middle-class suburbia in director Todd Field's second film, released in 2006. Kate Winslet (pictured) plays Sarah Pierce, a suburban mum who is being slowly stifled by a life of school runs and coffee mornings with her Stepford-like neighbours. Alienated from her internet porn-obsessed husband, she strikes up a friendship with handsome stay-at-home dad Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson), which swiftly deepens into a hot and heavy affair.
Meanwhile, their privileged neighbourhood is shaken to the core when a convicted sex offender (Jackie Earle Haley) moves home with his mother in search of a new beginning.
Provocative, controversial, unsettling and essential viewing.
Little Children is a Film programme that first aired in 2005 and has been classified a 15 certificate.
