Review of An American Crime (2007) by Sean G — 14 Mar 2010

An American Crime paints a portrait of real-life events involving the sadistic torture of a 16-year old high school girl at the hands of Gertrude Baniszewski (Catherine Keener) and her children. The Likens family travel from town to town, working for the carnival.

Their children, Sylvia (Ellen Page) and Jennie (Hayley McFarland) want to stay put for once and make friend with kids and basically live like normal children. The father also feels (for whatever reason) that the girls are putting a strain on the marriage, so when Gertie offers to keep the kids for $20 a week room and board, the Likens take her up on her offer.

It seems like an amiable plan, as Gertie has six children of her own, and the experience of a big family could be fun for the girls. Gertie however, is involved in an abusive relationship with a much younger man (James Franco), and seems to be slowly cracking under the mental stress of trying to raise six children with very little income.

The impetus for her breakdown comes when one of her older daughters becomes pregnant by a married man. Sylvia tells the man of the girl's condition and one of her classmates overheard. The daughter gets revenge for this by telling her mother Sylvia has been spreading lies about her.

The abuse starts off simply but quickly escalates to dramatic levels. What's truly horrifying about this film isn't the abuse by the mentally unbalanced mother, but by her children. Much like a demented Charles Manson, she's able to convince those around her to carry out the most sadistic acts.

But unlike Manson, the ones she manipulates are just children (and here's where takes an interesting twist). We in the audience feel anger towards these children and through our sense of justice desire their punishment, and yet where do we draw the line? And it would be one thing if it were only her children who were the sadistic ones, but the fact that the other neighborhood children also participate shifts the blame to our society as a whole (hence, the title "An American Crime").

If children brought up in good wholesome homes can be convinced to do cruel things to innocent people, if children are unable to tell the difference between proper "punishment" and vile torture, then where do we draw the line? Even more cleverly, the film-maker places the audience in the same position as the guilty children, we're the observers unable or unwilling to stop the crime we're witnessing.

In a world of tabloid sleeze here we get our cheap, voyeuristic thrills as the seedy details of sexually perverse crimes get made public, it's only just that we get some of the blame. What really gets driven home by this movie is the notion that victim or torturer, either one could be your child.

All it takes is the word of a trusted adult, and the blind eye of society's turned head.