Todd Field's sophomore directing effort, following up his quietly sensationalized In the Bedroom, is less quietly sensationalized, in other words more blaringly sensationalized, and truly more sophomoric. The adaptation of a Tom Perrotta novel, complete with a snooty third-person-omniscient (i.e., know-it-all) narrator, undoubtedly tells us less about the malaise of our young middle-class suburban parents today than about the jaded palates of our moviegoers and/or moviemakers. An adulterous playground liaison -- between a killingly handsome Mr. Mom (Patrick Wilson, with his Newman-esque blue eyes and jutting upper lip), a graduate of law school but a flunker of the bar exam, and a latter-day Madame Bovary (Kate Winslet, the sleeker edition), who, married to a clod, champions her literary forerunner as a proto-feminist in her book-discussion group -- cannot be considered sufficiently spicy without the added tang of a neighborhood sex offender, a vigilante ex-cop with innocent blood on his hands, and a married Internet porn addict in secret correspondence with Slutty Kay. To have three separate male characters masturbate on screen on three separate occasions must set some sort of record. And there's not even any clear evidence of developing skills since the director's freshman effort, which really was praised too highly, perhaps too intoxicatingly. See, for example, the flash-cut fusillade of innocuous bric-a-brac at the outset. Or see the overly choreographed scene at the public swimming pool when the sex offender's arrival in snorkel and flippers gets everyone out of the water faster than if he were a Great White accompanied by the theme from Jaws. Or see the treatment of the night-league amateur football players, through distorting wide-angle lenses, as sneering bruisers suitable for an Adam Sandler comedy. In short, see, all too ostentatiously, the director direct. With Jennifer Connelly, Jackie Earle Haley, and Noah Emmerich. (2006) — Duncan Shepherd