Lawn Dogs

Lawn Dogs is a British drama set in an affluent American gated community, where a new family arrives and their ten-year-old daughter, Devon, struggles to fit in. Lonely and imaginative, she forms an unlikely friendship with Trent, a twenty-one-year-old who mows the neighbourhood lawns and keeps to himself. The adults around them, including Devon's parents and their neighbours, view the relationship with suspicion and treat Trent as an outsider because of his age and his class. Their unease turns into hostility, setting up the film's central conflict between the child's trust and the community's fear.

John Duigan directed from a screenplay by Naomi Wallace, with Duncan Kenworthy producing. The film followed several earlier Duigan features, including Romero, Flirting and Sirens. Sam Rockwell plays Trent and Mischa Barton plays Devon, with Christopher McDonald and Kathleen Quinlan as her parents and Bruce McGill and David Barry Gray in supporting roles.

Released in November 1997, the film runs 101 minutes. Made for a budget of 7 million dollars, it drew a modest theatrical audience but has since found a following: on IMDb it holds a 7.1 rating from 113 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 7.1 from the same number of votes, and critics gave it 6.5 from 18 reviews, so audiences rated it somewhat higher than the critics did.