For anyone conversant with the English class system and the clichés surrounding it, this movie unfolds with the inevitability of a train wreck, but you watch it anyway to see what the final smash up will be like. Here we have a bored, intelligent, manipulative rich girl and an angry, intelligent poor girl who is smart enough the see that her life is a dead end but has no idea how to escape from it. Guess which one takes the relationship seriously and gets hurt, and which one is simply using it for entertainment. Hint -- never expect anything good from a character in a movie, especially a teen-aged character, who quotes Nietzsche with approval. The end is inevitable, but there are some interesting surprises along the way, including one moment of genuinely suspenseful uncertainty, and the three principal actors inhabit the roles believably.
--SPOILER
One interesting twist is the movie's surprisingly sympathetic perspective on fundamentalist Christianity. For all the apparent disdain heaped upon the born again zeal of Mona's brother by both girls, we ultimately see that it has kept his self-loathing rage in check, and that he is a better person when he has faith than when he has been irresponsibly seduced into losing it.
--SPOILER
One interesting twist is the movie's surprisingly sympathetic perspective on fundamentalist Christianity. For all the apparent disdain heaped upon the born again zeal of Mona's brother by both girls, we ultimately see that it has kept his self-loathing rage in check, and that he is a better person when he has faith than when he has been irresponsibly seduced into losing it.