This film was watchable, but not memorable, except for the twist at the end. Mother Susan is pregnant, but getting a divorce from her cheating husband. Daughter Justine is having friend and boyfriend trouble. One night, after fighting with friend Vicky about her boyfriend Ryan, the fight spills out into the night, where Vicky is killed. Justine and her best friend Ashley apparently are the only ones who know what happened, and swear to each other never to tell.
There are some very unrealistic parts to the movie, such as the local newspaper prints stories that Justine is charged with the murder, yet there's only one unfriendly encounter with other students at her school, where she continues to go. (Yes, this was before the internet!) In addition, while one of the detectives on the case is a high school friend of Susan's and is seeing her, he is not taken off the case, even though he says he has to take himself off the case.
While this is a murder story, it's more like a mother story. It's a story about unconditional mother love. That began to really irritate me, too. Susan ignores proof Justine was involved in the crime. She seems to conveniently forget Justine came home the next morning after the murder with blood on her face, due to an earring being ripped out of her ear. In addition, she ponders what she should do with evidence that proved Vicky was at her house the night of the murder.
Is it right and moral for a mother to cover up for her daughter, even if it becomes apparent her daughter is involved in a murder? Does unconditional mother love ace everything else in the world, including justice for a murder victim? How would she feel if her daughter was killed and another mother was behaving as she was behaving? Should a mother keep telling her daughter she totally believes her even when she does not? This film does make the viewer think a little, but only a little.
P. S Note the twist at the end really has nothing to do with anything the movie is focusing on. It obviously only exists to make the crime hard for the viewer to solve.
