An American Crime
Short description
An American Crime dramatizes the case of Gertrude Baniszewski, an Indianapolis housewife who in 1965 took in teenage sisters Sylvia and Jenny Likens while their parents travelled for work. When payment for the girls' keep fails to arrive, Gertrude turns on Sylvia, confining her to the cellar of the family home and subjecting her to prolonged abuse. Her own children and young people from the neighbourhood are drawn into the campaign against the girl.
Tommy O'Haver directed and wrote the screenplay with Irene Turner. The film sits between the comedies Get Over It and Ella Enchanted and his later The Most Hated Woman in America. Catherine Keener plays Gertrude, with Elliot Page as Sylvia Likens, James Franco as Andy, Bradley Whitford as the prosecutor, Ari Graynor as Paula Baniszewski and Nick Searcy as Lester Likens, among a credited cast of thirty.
Made for roughly two million dollars, the film was released in 2007 and runs 97 minutes. Audiences rate it 7.2 out of 10 on IMDb and 7.3 out of 10 on TMDB, while critics' reviews average 4.8 out of 10, a clear gap between professional and viewer response.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film is based on real events that took place in Indiana in 1965.
- A significant portion of the film was created using transcripts from the trial.
- Elliot Page (formerly known as Ellen Page) was the only choice for the role of Sylvia Likens.
- The actual daughter of the protagonist, Paula Banizhevski, was released and took on a different name. She found a job at a school in Iowa and worked there for 14 years until her past accidentally surfaced, after which she immediately resigned.
- This is already the second attempt to bring the story of Sylvia Likens (1949-1965) to the screen, as the first attempt was unsuccessful. In the early 1980s, there were talks of filming a movie about Sylvia, but the girl's sister, Jenny, was categorically opposed, and the idea was abandoned. The decision to finally make the film was only made after Jenny's death in 2004.
- The film was shot in chronological order so that the actors could personally experience everything that Sylvia had to endure.
- Elliot Page (birth name Ellen Grace Philpotts-Page) stopped eating while preparing for the role of Sylvia. When director Tommy Ohayver noticed his thinness, the actor said he wasn't eating because Sylvia had been starved.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
