Crime + Punishment in Suburbia (2000)

21% of critics liked it
(29 reviews)
59% of users liked it
(2,953 ratings)

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… More 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. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: R, 1 hr. 40 min.
Directed By: Rob Schmidt
Written By: Larry Gross
Genres: Art House & International, Drama

In Theaters: Jan 24, 2000 Wide
On DVD: Jan 2, 2001
Studio: MGM Home Entertainment

Critic Reviews

Ernest Hardy, Film.com
What should be the heart of the movie (the interior lives of the mother and daughter at the tale's center) is instead a dud; the female characters are barely drawn at all.
Mark Caro, Chicago Tribune
An arty, brain-dead celebration of beautiful losers.
Michael Atkinson, Mr. Showbiz
Far from the head-banging alternative to teen movies the filmmakers intended -- it's more like a self-important Poison Ivy sequel.
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
The kind of movie that lives and breathes.
Paul Tatara, CNN.com
The best thing that can be said about Rob Schmidt's Crime and Punishment in Suburbia -- aside from the fact that it's over in less than two hours -- is that it doesn't glorify violence committed by sexy teens.
Jonathan Foreman, New York Post
Director Rob Schmidt photographs the action in that visually clichéd, MTV-influenced manner now de rigeur in much of independent cinema.
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
This is one twisted pic.
Annlee Ellingson, Boxoffice Magazine
Despite its pretenses, the film fails to break the mold, presenting stock characters in predictable situations without a gimmick to separate it from the pack.
, E! Online
The crime? Turning Fyodor Dostoyevsky's classic novel into a glorified music video.