An American Crime - 2007 * * * *

The Child's punishment became a woman's crime.

No one can fail to be moved and disgusted by this story. And with both movies ( this and The Girl Next Door) coming out so close together one cannot fail to look for similarities. One thing I did notice with this film was that it was as many reviewers have called it 'candy coated' so as not to upset the viewers. I am not for one minute saying that I want to be upset as a result of seeing the film but I feel that by covering over some of the particularly disgusting areas of the case that we are not fully understanding both the crime and the psychology behind this deranged family. Also we are effectively papering over Syliva Liken's life and death simply because we can't bear to hear about it and I think that is very wrong. If it happened we should be hearing about it so that nothing like this ever happens again. Although I think the acting in this was many times better than TGND ( Keener and Page were Oscar-worthy) I think the reality of the crime was portrayed in a more truthful way in the other film. Gertrude is seen in this as a flustered and hard-done by woman who only wants the best for her family and at the start of the film she does not come across as a particularly bad person. The reality was very different. Gertrude was a viscious and violent psychopath who hated Sylvia for everything she stood for ( mainly because she was pretty and sweet and pure unlike Gertrude's own daughter Paula). She tortured Sylvia with full compliance from the neighbourhood boys and girls even homing in on her daughter Stephanie's boyfriend Coy who was happy to oblige. The film was good as a horror film might be with no truth in it but as regards to portraying a real life case it didn't do very well and I think insulted Sylvia's memory.

2 Great actors there though who thoroughly deserved awards for their performances (and you might remember Jeremy Sumpter as Coy who played Peter Pan in the film).