This is a very harrowing movie based on a true story from 1958 of an adopted teenage girl who is kept tied-up in a basement and horribly physically and sexually abused by her male cousins and other neighborhood kids, all under the orchestration of her very insane woman-hating aunt.
This movie is definitely hard to watch (it prompted at least one walk-out at the midnight film festival showing I attended), but it's nowhere as graphic as it COULD be given the subject matter, and it doesn't revel in the abuse and degradation of the girl like many of these kind of movies tend to (think "I Spit on Your Grave" and some of the recent so-called "torture porn."). It also has a strong moral center in the form of the pubescent boy next door who befriends the girl and becomes increasing disturbed by what is happening to her, but is unable to tell the authorities or even his clueless parents out of loyalty to his friends. This kind of helpless but moral hero is actually a lot more realistic than the usual avenging Rambo type in typical Hollywood movies (which ought to be called "revenge porn", and are even more dangerous than legitimate "torture porn" because they create the kind of dangerous fantasies that lead entire countries to blunder into places like Vietnam or Iraq). In that respect, it kind of reminded me of one of my favorite all-time movies, "River's Edge", which is also very disturbing, but ultimately very morally uplifting in a human (rather than revenge fantasy) way.
The acting by all involved is excellent and the directing more than adequate. Some may fault the movie for not having an obvious "message", but SFW. Don't see this if you're easily offended, but I would recommend it to anyone willing to give it a chance.
This movie is definitely hard to watch (it prompted at least one walk-out at the midnight film festival showing I attended), but it's nowhere as graphic as it COULD be given the subject matter, and it doesn't revel in the abuse and degradation of the girl like many of these kind of movies tend to (think "I Spit on Your Grave" and some of the recent so-called "torture porn."). It also has a strong moral center in the form of the pubescent boy next door who befriends the girl and becomes increasing disturbed by what is happening to her, but is unable to tell the authorities or even his clueless parents out of loyalty to his friends. This kind of helpless but moral hero is actually a lot more realistic than the usual avenging Rambo type in typical Hollywood movies (which ought to be called "revenge porn", and are even more dangerous than legitimate "torture porn" because they create the kind of dangerous fantasies that lead entire countries to blunder into places like Vietnam or Iraq). In that respect, it kind of reminded me of one of my favorite all-time movies, "River's Edge", which is also very disturbing, but ultimately very morally uplifting in a human (rather than revenge fantasy) way.
The acting by all involved is excellent and the directing more than adequate. Some may fault the movie for not having an obvious "message", but SFW. Don't see this if you're easily offended, but I would recommend it to anyone willing to give it a chance.