What the Flick

...a Golden God of Gorgeousness. Named Brad, which honestly could not be more perfect for the character. So there's frumpy, overeducated (MA in English) Sarah, with her big Massachusetts Colonial house and heirloom furniture, and her slightly older wanker husband, and her mewling 4-year-old daughter, to whom she relates as I do to unwelcome household tasks, like cleaning the toilet. And there's blonde, feckless, tall, handsome Brad, with his bossy but gorgeous documentary filmmaker wife (Jennifer Connelly), his history of failing the bar exam twice, their rented house, his wife's mother's money, and his adorable 4-year-old son, to whom he relates as a playmate.

On a dare from the "professional" Moms at the local park, Sarah -- who sees herself as way too good for all that motherhood stuff -- goes over to talk to Brad, whom the others fantasize about (they call him the Prom King, which says so much about everyone's mind set here) and, on a whim, shares with him a chaste kiss. While this scandalizes the Pro-Moms, it sets in motion a reckless affair carried out with wild abandon, as Sarah and Brad convince themselves, and each other, that this is what they're meant for, not all that boring family repsonsibility stuff. Leading at one point to my favorite moment, when Jennifer Connelly spends a beat too long under a dining room table looking at the perfectly awful shoes and blue toenail polish that Sarah is wearing, horrified to think her husband is rocking the playground with such a schlub.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, a child molester (Jackie Earle Haley, also nominated for an Oscar as best actor in a supporting role; BTW, no offense Jackie, but Djimon Hounsou had better win) has been released from prison and returned home to live with his mother. The two plots intertwine at several key points, though frankly I could've lived without the faux sense of danger that the child molester story adds.

Mostly, it's about the restlessness of the suburbs, the need some feel to believe they're too special for all that safe domesticity, the desire for danger or to do something naughty, the urge to fill the empty hours and streets with a narrative of some sort, even if it's silly or reckless or possibly violent. And it's about how refusing to grow up, either by desiring little children or by acting like them, undermines lives and relationships.

So, yeah, Kate is great, as always, as Sarah. You see her yearning and her trying to make this wife/mother thing her desired destiny. And Patrick Wilson seems perfect as Brad, sweet, hapless, Brad, so good looking and so lucky and so got the pretty girl. He just wants someone to listen to his dreams, not someone to hand him Bar Exam study guides. He wants to skateboard and be free. I, on the other hand, wanted to brand a giant L on his forehead and warn even selfish Sarah to get away. Oy vey, people. What do you want out of life? Sarah, honey, if you want to discuss Emma Bovary with people who'll listen, stay in New York (or Boston, but don't head West). Brad, sweetie, if you want to just hang at the skate park and be whatever, by all means, Los Angeles (or Seattle or South Beach) beckons. But in the name of all that's holy, don't go getting married and having kids and living in the 'burbs and then get all crazy about it. Other people's lives depend on you at that point.

But I think that's the reaction director (and co-screenwriter) Todd Field wants you to have -- he's not trying to make Sarah and Brad into heroes. From the pitch-perfect voiceover (from co-screenwriter Tom Perrota's novel of the same name), I had to believe he was saying, look at these people. And look at that fracked up child molester, who at least recognizes his faults. He can't help his urges, but Sarah and Brad can, and should. And the fact that this movie made me mad and exasperated, made me laugh and feel sad, and made me spend a minute having sympathy for that child molester, but also for Sarah and Brad and their whole tribe of suburban angst-meisters, made it all worthwhile.