The film displays a certain kinship with Sam Mendes's American Beauty, but Field is more tragedian than social satirist.

As in Field's first film, the characters are drawn with such compassion their follies become our own and their desires seem as vast as the night sky.

Little Children includes all the clichéd scenarios of a midday TV sudser, but they're ratcheted up several seedy degrees.

'...the 134 minute length is justified by the eloquent way that Field skilfully draws out the mores of the suburban community...'