Choose Your Weirdos

And you thought it couldn't get any better than Kate Winslet's Clementine. Wrong. Multi-Empire Award winning Kate looks set to top her previous best with her portrayal of 'Sarah' in Little Children, Todd Field's next film and adaptation of Tom Perrotta's novel about suburban weirdness. Actually, Winslet's involvement with the project has been common knowledge for a while now, and the real news is that Jennifer Connelly is also in talks to star. Which of the assortment of nutbags who pepper the plot Jennifer is to play has not yet been announced, but they all sound entertaining. There's an uptight domestic facist who has sex with her husband by appointment, a football quarterback living old glories, and a paedophile just moved into the neighbourhood from prison. We're guessing Jen's not going to be cast as either of the latter. In what sounds similar in vein to Todd Solondz's Happiness, Winslet's character is described as a bisexual feminist addicted to internet porn. Now, in the book, it's the partner who is the porn surfer, so whether Field and Perrotta (who are co-adapting the book) have amalgamated the two, or someone has their wires crossed is still very much open to speculation; it's early days and details are still sketchy. The books general theme concerns the adults 'waking' from their daily routine to discover they are not happy in their cotton wool wrapped suburban existence, and there choices to step outside of the norms imposed upon them. Film-wise, it's been a quiet couple of years for the Oscar winning Connelly. Last seen onscreen in 2003's House Of Sand And Fog, she's still been working as a hard as ever, raising a little one with hubby Paul Bettany. She's also recently completed filming Dark Water for director Walter Salles, and is still associated with the long-mooted adaptation of Brideshead Revisited. If you feel so inclined, contrast that with Winslet's output of 10 projects completed or announced in the same period. It's a funny old world, innit?