As a senior in college, I was fortunate enough to be forced into reading Vladimir Nabokov’s controversial novel “Lolita.” While the idea of reading a pedophilic love story seemed off-putting to me, I simply couldn’t wait to hear the class discussion on the book. I like seeing people uncomfortable. After some stumbling out of the gate, I grew to love Nabokov’s book and the more disgusting and awkward it got, the more I awaited the response from the gum poppin’ girls and the muscle headed dudes in class. They didn’t disappoint.
As class got ready to start and “Lolita” was the topic for the day, there were creeped out looks and an undercurrent of naughtiness or even embarrassment. Some in the class managed to put their cell phones down long enough to suggest running the teacher off campus. As the angry, confused and grossed out comments began to fly my teacher sat back and looked at the class. “Didn’t any of you find the book…kind of…hilarious?” Only a pen rolling off the desk broke the silence that followed. Yet he was right! “Lolita,” for as sad, disturbing, sexually offensive and difficult as it is to read, the book is also a fairly black comedy that only a person able to set aside their disgust at a pedophile can really get. After watching Todd Field’s excellent “Little Children,” I had the same sort of feeling. While the film is downright strange, there’s still unforgettable moments of humor, sadness and joy. And there’s also plenty of uncomfortable moments as well.
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“Little Children” is like a less forgettable “American Beauty” mixed with a much wryer take on Kubrick’s “Lolita.” Kubrick got the humor that’s inherent in “Lolita” and Field truly gets the humor that Tom Perrotta (who also wrote the wickedly funny “Election”) writes in both his novel and screenplay. In a movie theater full of freaked out geriatrics, I found myself chuckling aloud many times. Is that wrong? Maybe, if you’re too uptight to react honestly to an honest movie. “Little Children” is outstanding and I think it will be one of those films that people don’t really recognize it’s greatness until a few years down the road.
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