GLASS HOUSE: THE GOOD MOTHER

REVIEWED BY CHARITY BISHOP

Our rating: 3 out of 5

Because of: sexual content, violence, language

Rated:

Thrillers come in many shapes and sizes but most of them boil down to a single individual placed into peril, and threatened with an overpowering enemy. The woman is always pitted against the man. The children against adults. This film is based loosely on the success of The Glass House, but with different children, different adults, and a different outcome. I admit, the primary reason I wanted to see it was Angie Harmon ... and boy, did she deliver.

Left orphaned by their parents' accidental violent death, Abby (Jordan Hinson) and her younger brother Ethan (Bobby Coleman) have been placed into the foster care system. Their parents wanted them to be under the protection and guardianship of a family friend and local police officer, Ben Koch (Jason London), but his single status, one-bedroom apartment, and long hours make him a less than ideal choice for raising a family. The social worker places the children with Raymond and Eve Goode (Joel Gretsch, Angie Harmon). Suffering the recent loss of their son, all they want is a normal lifestyle. But life in their beautiful house atop a hill is anything but normal. The locks are changed on a regular basis. The children are never to wander out of the house alone. The Goode's son's room is off limits. And there is a name scrawled into a beam in the basement: "David."

The more suspicious Abby becomes of their new and perfect lifestyle, the more friction arises between her and Eve. It soon becomes apparent that even Raymond is frightened of what his wife might do, leaving the children in a precarious predicament. For the most part, the formula follows what every thriller involving children and foster parents do ... the older child becomes suspicious, and is set against one or both of her parents, who are concealing a dark secret. It works because the thought of a child at an adult's mercy is so terrible that we loathe to fathom it. And in that respect, The Good Mother does deliver what it promises to ... heart-pumping action, and tense scenes of endangerment for the leading characters.

I must question some of the director's shooting choices, since there are sequences that seem out of place or present for no real reason. Two montages display this strange absence of a furtherance of the plot line, but other than that it kept me on the edge of my seat (or the couch, as the case may be). Everyone turns in a beautiful performance, but the film really does belong to the leading ladies. Jordan Hinson is very good for being so young, with the proper amount of restraint in some scenes, and overwhelming emotion in others. Her response during a particularly jarring sequence of having her arm stitched up had me cringing. Harmon I am used to in the tough good girl routine, as some of her other thrillers or even her stint as one of my favorite characters on Law & Order. This movie proves those sultry good looks can be just as horrific as alluring, and she literally made my skin crawl.

Given the R-rating, I was expecting worse content than there turned out to be, and must state that it missed a PG13 by a hair. There is one semi-lengthy sexual scene (no nudity or movement, just passionate kissing) and three f-words. Other profanities are limited. Violence consists of an individual being shot, someone else hit over the head with a wrench, another falling down a flight of stairs (the implications are that a neck was broken in the fall), and various intended bodily harm toward Abby. Eve gives the children shots. She leaves broken glasses in the sink so Abby will cut herself, then stitches them up graphically without numbing the limb (several shots of the needle going through severed flesh). She violently slaps Abby several times, and pulls her by the hair.

In many respects this is a better film than the original that it's based on. There's no alarming lecherous subplot going on, and less of an emphasis on drugs. But because the production was so rushed, there were things missing that might have made it better. It's not something that I'll watch over and over again, but it was worth it for a cheap thrill that leaves a haunting aftertaste.