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LITTLE CHILDREN Based on Tom Perrotta's novel, Todd Field's richly textured drama offers a petri dish dissection of the residents of a Massachusetts suburb in which most of the adults' lives are defined by the manner in which they relate to the kids who scamper around the margins of both their lives and the movie itself. Sarah Pierce (Kate Winslet) and Brad Adamson (Patrick Wilson) are both unhappily married stay-at-homes who engage in an adulterous tryst scheduled around outings to the pool and the park with their small fry. First, though, they have to navigate their way around the disapproving clucks of their neighborhood's soccer moms, robo-parents whose familial devotion has stripped them of anything resembling a personality. And then there's Ronnie McGorvey (Jackie Earle Haley), a convicted sex offender whose emergence in this quiet community understandably draws attention, though it also allows the other residents the opportunity to smooth over their own flaws. The entire cast is superb -- as Ronnie's blind date, Jane Adams is sensational in a role that would draw award attention were it not so brief -- but it's former 70s child star Haley who's the most memorable. His sexual predator is by turns loathsome and sympathetic -- not unlike most of the "normal" characters in the film -- and Haley is able to locate the humane within the inhuman. It's a complex portrayal, perfectly suited to the weighty movie that shelters it. ***1/2
NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM This family film plays with fire by employing the services of three overexposed actors -- Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson and Robin Williams (only Will Ferrell is missing) -- and potentially allowing them to run rampant through an overstuffed fantasy yarn. Mercifully, though, Stiller is muted, Williams is similarly restrained, and Wilson ... well, Wilson is still pretty annoying (two out of three ain't bad). Stiller plays Larry Daley, the new night watchman at a museum where the exhibits come to life after the venue closes for the day. The benevolent Teddy Roosevelt (Williams) is helpful to have around, but Larry has his hands full evading Attila the Hun, dealing with a mischievous monkey, and settling squabbles between a miniature cowboy (Wilson) and an equally diminutive Roman commander (Steve Coogan). A clever premise (adapted from a children's book) is hampered by lackluster scripting and directing, though Ricky Gervais provides some choice comic moments as the supercilious museum head. If nothing else, this should command the attention of kids who are already bored with their Christmas presents. **
NOTES ON A SCANDAL Judi Dench is so good at what she does that in recent years, she's become something of a bore. Because she's always cast as the no-nonsense matriarch with more brains and gumption than anyone else in the room, her career's been in a depressing holding pattern. Notes On a Scandal doesn't exactly find her breaking away from this mold, but because she's given so many more nuances to explore, she's able to excel via her finest work in quite some time. Cate Blanchett, (not surrendering an inch of the screen to her formidable costar), plays Sheba Hart, a newly arrived instructor at the same British school where the humorless Barbara Covett (Dench) also teaches. Initially irked by the presence of this luminous newcomer, Barbara eventually becomes her confidante, imagining in her mind that their affection for each other might even run deeper than mere friendship. After Sheba foolishly starts an affair with a 15-year-old student (Andrew Simpson), Barbara feels betrayed, but also realizes that she now has a perfect instrument of blackmail at her disposal. Notes On a Scandal is little more than a lurid melodrama -- one that could benefit from some late-inning twists, I might add -- but Dench and Blanchett, slinging around juicy dialogue by scripter Patrick Marber (from Zoe Heller's book), turn this into something more. Think of it as Masterpiece Theatre filtered through Days of Our Lives. ***
