Crime & Punishment in Suburbia

2000 Drama

Recalling both The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) and American Beauty (1999), this teen drama recounts the trials and tribulations of one very dysfunctional family. Roseanne Skolnik (Monica Keena) is a popular high school student who is dating Jimmy (James DeBello), the football captain. She also lives in a family where her embittered mother Maggie (Ellen Barkin) is plotting to murder Roseanne's violent drunken stepfather Fred (Michael Ironside). After a smashed Fred rapes her, Roseanne starts plotting her stepfather's demise too. She ropes her boyfriend into doing the deed, and soon she finds herself under arrest and on trial for the crime. With all of her friends shunning her, she confides in her creepy voyeuristic neighbor. This film was screened at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival.

Director: Rob Schmidt

Starring: Monica Keena, Vincent Kartheiser, Ellen Barkin, Jeffrey Wright, James DeBello

 26 Reviews  3 Awards

Reviews

  • A messy but hungry film like this is more interesting than cool technical perfection.

    Roger Ebert - The Chicago Sun-Times

    19 January 2013

  • Less an updated version of the Dostoevsky novel than an unusually somber Hollywood teen love story.

    Jonathan Foreman - New York Post

    19 January 2013

  • Melodramatic look at alienated California high school students.

    Maitland McDonagh - TV Guide

    19 January 2013

  • Just say no.

    Mark Caro - The Chicago Tribune

    19 January 2013

  • Completed before the release of "American Beauty," this contrived, puffed up little picture nonetheless seems like a ripoff, perhaps because it mines the same tired assumptions and unexamined stereotypes about suburban family life.

    Dana Stevens - The New York Times

    19 January 2013

Awards

  • Rob Schmidt

    Deauville Film Festival (2000)

     

  • Peace

    Political Film Society (2001)

     

  • Dramatic

    Sundance Film Festival (2000)

     

Lists

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