Roseanne Skolnick (Monica Keena) is a popular cheerleader and girlfriend of the football player Jimmy (James DeBello),and she has a very dysfunctional family: her mother Maggie Skolnick (Ellen Barkin) is having an affair with a bartender and her stepfather Fred Skolnick (Michael Ironside) is a drunken and aggressive man. Vincent (Vincent Kartheiser) is a sweet and weird teenager, who studies in the same class and has a crush on Roseanne. He follows her everywhere with his camera, taking lots of pictures of her in the most different places or situations. When Roseanne is abused by her stepfather, she decides to kill him, with the support of Jimmy. However, her mother Maggie takes the blame and goes to the court for trial, being accused of murder. During the trial of her mother, Roseanne has to live with her guilt, being supported by Vincent. In the end, she has to decide: leave her mother be convicted and live with the feeling of guilt for the rest of her life, or assume the responsibility for the crime. "Crime and Punishment in Suburbia" is a surprisingly great teen free adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment". The screenplay is very well developed and the young cast has excellent performance. Although having a great moral in the end, with the redemption of Roseanne, the direction is so good that is able to conclude the plot without being corny. I like good contemporaries free adaptations of famous romances, and this one has not disappointed me. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Crime + Castigo" ("Crime + Punishment")

Fyodor Dostoyevsky would have a whole lot of trouble recognizes today's me generation version of his classic Russian novel. His Raskalnikov was a lot of things, but not a voyeur.

Which is what Vincent Kartheiser is. Kartheiser's your transplant from the city teen who develops an obsession over popular Monica Keena. Keena is your Junior Miss teen queen who of course is dating a football player James DeBello. DeBello gets a nasty feeling about Kartheiser hanging around possibly seeing some intimate moments.

But the perfect teen comes from a nasty home where stepfather Michael Ironside abuses both her and her mother Ellen Barkin. Barkin is in fact now having a boyfriend Jeffrey Wright and the fact that Wright is Black is really driving Ironside up the wall.

One night Keena decides to do in Ironside and DeBello gets roped in on the deal just by being there. But it's Barkin who is arrested. Except for Kartheiser everybody gets something nasty happening to them.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but DeBello while he's a dumb jock is right about Kartheiser, he is a stalker. This might be the only film in history where the stalker gets the girl. I remember that happening on Law And Order but it was considered a bad thing in that episode.

Crime + Punishment In Suburbia might have intrigued Dostoyevsky but I don't think he would have liked it.

"C&P in Suburbia" is a dark and somewhat staged psychodrama with misanthropic overtones which focuses on the teen daughter of a family in crisis and her search for self-actualization. This well cast, well acted, well shot, well directed flick's story is likely to be too black or severe for many. However, those who feel inclined to write this film off as "unrealistic junk" should remember one word. Columbine.