If you go into this movie assuming "Crime and Punishment in Suburbia" to be a modernized rehash of the subliminal masterpiece of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel, you have been sadly misled. Sure it's convincing enough that the opening lines comes from the novel, which was it's way of luring the audience that the scenes afterwards will follow through the novel. In Fyodor's book, Raskolnikov protests against towards the moral scruples interfering in him by the society that revolves around him and murders an innocent lady. He later faces his worst crime he committed was through the guilty conscience that bestowed upon him. In this flawed modernized adaptation, Raskonikov materializes in the form of an adolescent girl named Roseanne Skolnick (Monica Keena), one of the leading characters in the flick.
This movie was completed after the hugely and far more superior "American Beauty", but was released a year later, this superficial film has many similarities to "American Beauty" in almost every detail and it's largely because it gives an overview of the similar clichés centring on well-oiled rich suburban-dwellers. Gloomy loner Vincent (Vincent Kartheiser) is constantly stalking Roseanne and is never without his camera. Given the opportunity to supply the narration of the movie, we hope that he can explain what's happening in the story or at least provide us with something intelligent about the story. We end up getting neither. His narration comes off as a confident New Age spiritual fanatic who believes that he can rescue Roseanne from the life she currently has. In "American Beauty", Ricky was able to use his camera to unravel the encoded layers of the human psyche. Vincent along with the rest of the cast waddles through the plot's twists lacking any kind of connections going through his mind.
The genre is pretty much like "American Beauty" and with the suburbs being the main settings it is utilized as an epicentre where the whole emotion of feeling loathsome manifests towards the civilians and puts a deflation towards their relatively comfortable establishments. In Roseanne's family are the ever-present familiar bunch of clichés we've all seen before. We have the mentally unstable stepfather Fred Skolnick (Michael Ironside) who is a heavy alcoholic, a harried and neurotic mother Maggie Skolnick (Ellen Barkin), and a popular little girl who's in a relationship with the school's top jock (James DeBello). What the film's intention was is to have Vincent guide Roseanne to the path of rediscovery and to change her views of the world eternally. At least that's what I assumed that's what it focused upon.
What made "American Beauty" poignant was that it showed how scornful it was but yet stayed humane in its entirety. It exhibits how human connections can get lost and it was executed with integrity and dark in terms of humour. This movie offers no humour,the camera angles were at a snail's pace, the soundtrack was embellished, the visual themes were forced and the narration was idiotic.
To completely set us off guard, the narration shifts from Vincent's to Roseanne's. In an emotionless voice-over, from jail she coldly states that she's enjoying her vacuous lifestyle. And when she was released she strangely follows Vincent likes he's one of God's advocates and admirably replies "What a strange path it took to find my heart." At least we assume that she even has one to begin with.
This movie was completed after the hugely and far more superior "American Beauty", but was released a year later, this superficial film has many similarities to "American Beauty" in almost every detail and it's largely because it gives an overview of the similar clichés centring on well-oiled rich suburban-dwellers. Gloomy loner Vincent (Vincent Kartheiser) is constantly stalking Roseanne and is never without his camera. Given the opportunity to supply the narration of the movie, we hope that he can explain what's happening in the story or at least provide us with something intelligent about the story. We end up getting neither. His narration comes off as a confident New Age spiritual fanatic who believes that he can rescue Roseanne from the life she currently has. In "American Beauty", Ricky was able to use his camera to unravel the encoded layers of the human psyche. Vincent along with the rest of the cast waddles through the plot's twists lacking any kind of connections going through his mind.
The genre is pretty much like "American Beauty" and with the suburbs being the main settings it is utilized as an epicentre where the whole emotion of feeling loathsome manifests towards the civilians and puts a deflation towards their relatively comfortable establishments. In Roseanne's family are the ever-present familiar bunch of clichés we've all seen before. We have the mentally unstable stepfather Fred Skolnick (Michael Ironside) who is a heavy alcoholic, a harried and neurotic mother Maggie Skolnick (Ellen Barkin), and a popular little girl who's in a relationship with the school's top jock (James DeBello). What the film's intention was is to have Vincent guide Roseanne to the path of rediscovery and to change her views of the world eternally. At least that's what I assumed that's what it focused upon.
What made "American Beauty" poignant was that it showed how scornful it was but yet stayed humane in its entirety. It exhibits how human connections can get lost and it was executed with integrity and dark in terms of humour. This movie offers no humour,the camera angles were at a snail's pace, the soundtrack was embellished, the visual themes were forced and the narration was idiotic.
To completely set us off guard, the narration shifts from Vincent's to Roseanne's. In an emotionless voice-over, from jail she coldly states that she's enjoying her vacuous lifestyle. And when she was released she strangely follows Vincent likes he's one of God's advocates and admirably replies "What a strange path it took to find my heart." At least we assume that she even has one to begin with.