An American Crime : Movie Review

I just watched this movie and I could not believe that this story actually happened. An American Crim was released in 2009 starring Elliot Page. This movie was based on the horrific and tragic case of 16 year old girl named Sylvia Likens.

Plot :

Sylvia's parents Lester and Betty are circus workers and they traveled from town to town for work and she has a sister by the name of jenny. This story starts with her parents leaving for work trip for a couple of months . They would their daughters under the care of their neighbour Gertrude Bainszewski. Gertrude Bainszewski has many kids and she is struggling financially. In spite of this she would agree to take care of the girls for a charge of 20$ every week. In the beginning when the girl moved in everyone was so welcoming but all of this changed when Lester's payment becomes inconsistent after approximately 2 weeks. This infuriated Gertrude and she decided to whip Sylvia and Jenny with a belt . The payment did arrived couple of days late but Gertrude would toss the letter and would not inform the girls. She would start to abuse the girls and her main focus will be Sylvia. Gertrude's daughter Paula would get pregnant with a married man . One night when Sylvia was hanging out with her friends , she would see Paula getting abused by him to save her she would say that Paula is pregnant and this really angered her. Paula would inform Gertrude that Sylvia is spreading lies about her being pregnant . Gertrude would then ask Paula to punish her. Paula would later slap Sylvia so hard that she would break her own fist. From that moment on all of Gertrude kids and neighbour kids will all start abusing Sylvia. Sylvia would get thrown into the basement.

This movie was difficult to digest. Some scenes were truly disturbing and difficult to watch. To make things worst, this movie was based on a true story of Sylvia likens made this movie a 1000 times difficult to watch. This movie is not for everyone as this movies deals child abuse.

The cast of this movie was brilliant , everyone portrayed their roles well. It's difficult to bring a story that really happened into the movie format but the cast have done a wonderful job. Elliot Page's portrayal of Sylvia was brilliant. We really felt for her character , all the abuse and torture she felt. Every scene was acted out so brilliantly. In my opinion , no one could have played Sylvia Liken's betters as Elliot Page. She was just perfect for her role, she definitely brought her A game to the movie. In this movie she had shown a depth in her acting like we have never seen before.

Catherine Keener's portrayal of Gertrude Bainszewski was brilliant as well . She played the villain role so brilliantly. We truly hated her character , so this character was well played by Catherine Kenner. This movie was very depressing and very hard to watch. There were some scenes that were so hard to watch and knowing this is based on a true story made this movie even harder to watch. To know this really happened to Sylvia was unbearable.

I would never recommend this movie for everyone. This movie dwells into very difficult topics . This movie also dwells into the topic most people when they see something wrong , they choose to ignore it. In the movie it was clearly shown that the neighbours knew what was happening to Sylvia , but they chose to ignore it. No one bothered to call the cops and no one was there to save Sylvia. I really felt that every one let little girl down down. Yes, this was a difficult story but Sylvia story should be shown. No one should forget Sylvia Likens !!!