''Crime and Punishment in Suburbia'' (stylized as ''Crime + Punishment in Suburbia'') is a 2000 American

crime drama Crime film is a film belonging to the crime fiction genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and fiction. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine with many other genres, such as Drama (film and television), dr ...

film directed by

Rob Schmidt Rob Schmidt Barracano (born September 25, 1965) is an American filmmaker. His film credits include ''Wrong Turn (2003 film), Wrong Turn'' and ''Crime and Punishment in Suburbia''. He also created a pilot called American Town for Twentieth Cent ...

, written by Larry Gross, and starring Monica Keena, Vincent Kartheiser, Jeffrey Wright, James DeBello,

Michael Ironside Frederick Reginald Ironside (born February 12, 1950), known professionally as Michael Ironside, is a Canadian actor. A prominent character actor with over 270 film and television credits, he is known for playing villains and antiheroes, but has ...

and Ellen Barkin. The film is a contemporary fable loosely based on

Fyodor Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. () was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. He is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in both Russian and world literature, and many of his works are considered highly influent ...

's 1866 novel ''

Crime and Punishment ''Crime and Punishment'' is a novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was first published in the literary journal '' The Russian Messenger'' in twelve monthly installments during 1866.

'', and focuses on a high school student who plots to murder her stepfather after he brutally rapes her. The film premiered at the 2000

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...

before being given a

limited theatrical release __FORCETOC__ Limited theatrical release is a film distribution strategy of releasing a new film in a few cinemas across a country, typically art house theaters in major metropolitan markets. Since 1994, a limited theatrical release in the Unite ...

through

United Artists United Artists (UA) is an American film production and film distribution, distribution company owned by Amazon MGM Studios. In its original operating period, it was founded in February 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, Mary Pickford an ...

in September of that year. It received generally negative reviews from critics and grossed $26,394 at the United States box office.

Plot

Roseanne Skolnick is outwardly a perfect and popular high school senior in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...

, but she suffers from a dysfunctional home life: Her mother Maggie is unsatisfied in her marriage to Roseanne's

alcoholic Alcoholism is the continued drinking of alcohol despite it causing problems. Some definitions require evidence of dependence and withdrawal. Problematic use of alcohol has been mentioned in the earliest historical records. The World Hea ...

stepfather, Fred, who has raised Roseanne since age four. At school, Roseanne is an object of fascination to Vincent, an obsessive outcast who is often bullied by Roseanne's boyfriend, Jimmy. Though she is aware of Vincent's fixation with her, Roseanne largely ignores it. After Maggie begins an affair with local bartender Chris, she moves out of the family's suburban home, leaving Roseanne to temporarily live with Fred. One night, Fred rapes Roseanne in a drunken rage, leaving her emotionally withdrawn. Maggie visits Roseanne after she suffers a nervous breakdown in school, but she conceals the rape from her mother. Roseanne forms a plot to murder Fred, and asks Jimmy to help her, but also refuses to inform Jimmy of the rape. One night during a party, Roseanne briefly returns home with Jimmy to carry out the murder. In the living room, the two confront Fred, and Roseanne stabs him in the stomach. A fight breaks out in which Fred attempts to strangle Jimmy, but Roseanne finally kills Fred by stabbing him multiple times with an electric knife. While the couple flee the house to dispose of evidence and return to the party, Maggie arrives at the house and finds Fred's bloody corpse. Maggie is charged with Fred's murder, though she professes her innocence. Meanwhile, Roseanne goes to live with her grandmother and becomes an outcast in school. She and Jimmy's relationship swiftly grows frayed due to their shared guilt over Fred's murder. Roseanne slowly finds herself drawn to Vincent, who continues to pursue a connection with her. As Maggie's trial progresses, Roseanne and Vincent form a close bond, much to Jimmy's anger. One night, Jimmy gets drunk in a local bar, and is observed by Chris, who offers to give him a ride home. Meanwhile, Roseanne and Vincent stop at a gas station. While Vincent is inside the

convenience store A convenience store, convenience shop, bakkal, bodega, corner store, corner shop, superette or mini-mart is a small retail store that stocks a range of everyday items such as convenience food, groceries, beverages, tobacco products, lotter ...

, Roseanne finds photographs of herself and Jimmy from the night they murdered Fred, proving that Vincent was

stalking Stalking is unwanted and/or repeated surveillance or contact by an individual or group toward another person. Stalking behaviors are interrelated to harassment and intimidation and may include following the victim in person or monitorin ...

her and knew about the crime. She believes Vincent intends to

blackmail Blackmail is a criminal act of coercion using a threat. As a criminal offense, blackmail is defined in various ways in common law jurisdictions. In the United States, blackmail is generally defined as a crime of information, involving a thr ...

her, but he insists her decision to face punishment for her crime is her own. Chris and Jimmy happen to drive past, and Chris stops his car after seeing Roseanne and Vincent fighting. As Chris chastises Roseanne, a fight breaks out between him and Jimmy. Chris's gun discharges, shooting Jimmy. Chris flees the scene, and Jimmy narrowly survives his injuries. Roseanne ultimately confesses to Fred's murder and is given a

manslaughter Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th ce ...

sentence, while Jimmy is never formally charged. She remains estranged from her mother while in prison, but is often visited by Vincent. At the end of her sentence, Vincent arrives to pick her up on his motorcycle, and the two drive away.

Cast

Production

said that the film is a very loose adaptation of

's 1866 novel ''

''. "The main character kills a terrible person, conceals the crime, is consumed by it, suffers secretly, confesses and in a spiritual way is reborn. It's just that it takes place in a California high school instead of Siberia," he said. Larry Gross had first written the script in the early 1990s, but it languished on a shelf until a run of high school films became popular in the last half of the decade. The film's original title was ''Crime and Punishment in High School'', but this was changed after the

Columbine High School massacre A school shooting and attempted bombing occurred on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado, United States. The perpetrators, twelfth-grade students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered 13 students and one teach ...

happened on April 20, 1999. The film was shot in the summer of 1999 and was in production by June 28. In her book ''A Killer Life: How an Independent Film Producer Survives Deals and Disasters in Hollywood and Beyond'', producer Christine Vachon detailed the problematic shoot of the film, which was the independent film production company Killer Films' first studio-backed movie, with bickering and threatening letters between the director and the writer, the director alienating the studio, and the film eventually getting dumped.

Soundtrack

Release

''Crime and Punishment in Suburbia'' was selected to compete for the Grand Jury Prize Dramatic at the 2000

, where it had its world premiere on January 24, 2000. It was given a

in five theaters in the United States by

United Artists Films A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, since ...

on September 15, 2000.

Home media

''Crime and Punishment in Suburbia'' was released by

MGM Home Entertainment MGM Home Entertainment LLC (also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Home Entertainment, d/b/a MGM Home Entertainment and formerly known as MGM Home Video, MGM/CBS Home Video and MGM/UA Home Video) is the home video distribution arm of the American med ...

on DVD in January 2001, and on

Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...

on August 29, 2023.

Reception

Box office

''Crime and Punishment in Suburbia'' grossed a total of $26,394.

Critical response

On the

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 21% based on 29 reviews, and an average rating of 3.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Despite the beautiful visuals, ''Crime and Punishment'' is too somber and pretentious. Also, the acting is of mixed quality." On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 32 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...

awarded the film three stars and wrote, "''Crime and Punishment in Suburbia'' is no doubt 'flawed'–that favorite moviecrit word–and it suffers from being released a year after the similar American Beauty'',' even though it was made earlier. But it is the kind of movie that lives and breathes; I forgive its shortcomings because it strives, and because it contains excellent things." '' Time Out'' said director

draws out "assured performances from Keena's good-girl-gone-bad and Kartheiser's black-clad loner", but concluded the film is a "rare disappointment from maverick indie producer Christine Vachon" and "this story of festering psychosis beneath the placid surface of everyday US suburbia looks familiar."

Accolades

The film was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Feature at the 2000

References

External links

* * * {{Crime and Punishment 2000 films 2000 crime drama films 2000 drama films 2000 independent films 2000 psychological thriller films American crime drama films American high school films American independent films American psychological thriller films American rape and revenge films American teen drama films Films about alcoholism Films about dysfunctional families Films about mother–daughter relationships Films about murderers Films about school bullying Films about self-harm Films based on Crime and Punishment Films produced by Christine Vachon Films scored by Michael Brook Films set in California Films shot in Los Angeles Films about patricide Killer Films films United Artists films 2000s English-language films 2000s American films English-language independent films English-language crime drama films English-language thriller films