Every now and then, the film hits a definite note of ingenuity, but the deliberately quirky asides, which attempt to enliven the material, feel amateurish and false.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 30, 2019

Murder, booze, drugs in melodramatic true-crime movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 11, 2015

Exists in a soupy, unpersuasive middle ground, neither touching the rich, charged atmosphere of Heavenly Creatures, nor aiming for something more darkly comedic or rooted in social commentary.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Apr 18, 2014

A cartoonish and crudely staged dramatization of a disturbing true crime.

Full Review | Apr 11, 2014

What should have been suspenseful, even terrifying, is tiresome thanks to mostly predictable treatment.

Full Review | Apr 11, 2014

Brooks crafts a glorified basic cable movie, complete with stiff staging, obvious performances, and clunky screenwriting that turns absolute horror into unintentional comedy.

Full Review | Original Score: F | Apr 11, 2014

The film owes whatever persuasiveness it has to the teen leads' sharp performances - their sisterly chemistry and their filial friction with an alcohol-addled mother, well played by Mira Sorvino.

Full Review | Apr 10, 2014

Ms. Breslin and especially Ms. Henley are quite good, elevating a film that seems like an oft-told tale.

Full Review | Apr 10, 2014

This kind of thing requires a velvet touch, though director Stanley M. Brooks hits only hammer-heavy notes.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Apr 10, 2014

Any potential for an in-depth examination of the adolescent psyche pushed to its limits goes unmet, though not for lack of trying.

Full Review | Apr 8, 2014

There must have been a better way to enter into this promising script than with cheesy kite-flying on the beach and slo-mo waves.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 8, 2014

A marginal film elevated, however inadvertently, by the strange specificity of its scenes

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 10, 2014