In a twist on the “psycho chick ruins normal family” thriller (think The Hand That Rocks the Cradle or, if you must, Poison Ivy), The Glass House is about a normal chick who ruins a psycho family. Unfortunately, that’s the only thing remotely thrilling about it. Granted, the film is clearly targeted at younger teens, but that doesn’t mean it has to alternate between pandering and condescending to them; in its formulaic slackness, it’s the cinematic equivalent of boy-band pop.
The normal chick in question is Ruby Baker (Leelee Sobieski), a smart, mildly rebellious teen whose privileged private-school life is shattered when her parents are killed in a car accident. Along with her younger brother Rhett (Jurassic Park III‘s Trevor Morgan, whose acting here won’t keep Haley Joel Osment awake at night), she becomes the ward of her parents’ best friends, Terry and Erin Glass (Stellan Skarsgård and Diane Lane). Not coincidentally, she also becomes the inheritor of a hefty trust fund.
For about 12 seconds, everything seems great. The Glasses are successful (she’s a doctor, he runs his own business), and their home in Malibu looks like something out of a “Justification for Higher Education” poster. (Its shiny IKEA neatness is supposed to be a hint that the Glasses aren’t what they seem.) Inevitably, Ruby starts to feel suspicious of her guardians. She gets an uncomfortable vibe when she’s alone with Terry, and she wonders why Erin’s got such an extensive selection of pharmaceuticals in her medicine cabinet. As the situation gradually escalates from not-so-threatening to almost-threatening, Ruby finally comes to the conclusion the audience will have reached after seeing the trailer for this mediocrity.
Mind you, none of this is Leelee Sobieski’s fault. In fact, she’s well cast as the intelligent protagonist (she has a way of coming off like the smartest one in the room), and she adds much-needed snap to some of her lines. Skarsgård isn’t bad either; he goes from vaguely sinister to overtly sinister, as though he knows nobody’s going to buy him as a nice guy in the beginning. Bruce Dern shows up briefly as the family lawyer whom Ruby tells about her misgivings.
Director Daniel Sackheim comes from the dumbed-down world of television, and it shows in his annoying lack of subtlety. His attempts at creating suspense range from bad to worse. (The third time Sobieski nearly awakens Skarsgård while trying to steal his car keys, the scene borders on parody.) Wesley Strick’s script doesn’t help matters; the few plot twists that aren’t already obvious are given away too early and too often. (At one point, two revealing words linger on the screen like a poorly spliced subliminal message.) By the halfway mark, the film is indistinguishable from any of those Melissa Gilbert-in-peril MOWs that show up on the tube every five weeks or so. At least the ending, which includes a car chase that lets Sackheim trash more expensive cars than he could on TV, is consistent with the rest of the movie: obligatory, pre-packaged and not even slightly thrilling.
(1.5/4)