It is said that those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. In "The Glass House", the characters pelt the audience's credibility with rocks. The plot moves along, ticking off one necessary point after another until all the pieces are in place. Yes, they all fit together, but it's like building those puzzles with the picture on the box: you already know what you're going to get at the beginning.
The movie stars Leelee Sobieski as Ruby, a sixteen-year old (a bit of a stretch considering she recently played a college student in "Joy Ride") who is a typical rebellious teenager as the story opens. She and her brother are orphaned when their parents are killed in a car accident. Before they died, her parents arranged with their attorney to have their former neighbors, Erin and Terry Glass, to be their legal guardians should anything happen to them. So the kids are taken to the Glass's house in Malibu, which is in fact (ho ho) a glass house.
What follows is a series of scenes designed to demonstrate how the Glasses are not all they appear to be. These involve sequences in which Ruby ends up again and again to be in just the right place to overhear crucial conversations on the phone, in other rooms, etc. The script ensures that she always knows everything she needs to know so she can outwit the villains. The entire deception, when revealed, seems needlessly complicated and depends heavily on outsiders lacking in perception to such a degree they won't notice obvious signs that something is wrong.
I appreciated the movie's craftsmanship and it's performances, especially that of Sobieski and Stellan Skarsgard. Bruce Dern also turns in a nice role as the attorney who may know more than he's letting on. And I like the way Diane Lane suggests subtle motives for her character. There were several clever moments late in the film when Ruby is able to think one step ahead of her antagonists, but that is only because she knows more than she should be able to know in reality. The ending is the kind of Hollywood payoff that is all too familiar, and I think a more original one would have been easy to come up with.
The movie has a lot of technical skill but I can't recommend it on that basis alone. "The Glass House" isn't a bad name for the movie, though. You can see right through the plot to what's inside at a glance.
The movie stars Leelee Sobieski as Ruby, a sixteen-year old (a bit of a stretch considering she recently played a college student in "Joy Ride") who is a typical rebellious teenager as the story opens. She and her brother are orphaned when their parents are killed in a car accident. Before they died, her parents arranged with their attorney to have their former neighbors, Erin and Terry Glass, to be their legal guardians should anything happen to them. So the kids are taken to the Glass's house in Malibu, which is in fact (ho ho) a glass house.
What follows is a series of scenes designed to demonstrate how the Glasses are not all they appear to be. These involve sequences in which Ruby ends up again and again to be in just the right place to overhear crucial conversations on the phone, in other rooms, etc. The script ensures that she always knows everything she needs to know so she can outwit the villains. The entire deception, when revealed, seems needlessly complicated and depends heavily on outsiders lacking in perception to such a degree they won't notice obvious signs that something is wrong.
I appreciated the movie's craftsmanship and it's performances, especially that of Sobieski and Stellan Skarsgard. Bruce Dern also turns in a nice role as the attorney who may know more than he's letting on. And I like the way Diane Lane suggests subtle motives for her character. There were several clever moments late in the film when Ruby is able to think one step ahead of her antagonists, but that is only because she knows more than she should be able to know in reality. The ending is the kind of Hollywood payoff that is all too familiar, and I think a more original one would have been easy to come up with.
The movie has a lot of technical skill but I can't recommend it on that basis alone. "The Glass House" isn't a bad name for the movie, though. You can see right through the plot to what's inside at a glance.