With his mother dead and his father busy at work, Howie feels adrift in his New York suburb. He and his friend Gary spend their time burglarizing their neighbors' homes — until they make the mistake of robbing the house of Big John, a macho former Marine who is also an unrepentant pedophile. He propositions Howie, who declines, but the two eventually develop an unlikely and dangerous friendship.
Acting
Brian Cox makes monstrous feel almost magnetic.
Direction
Cuesta never lets you look away comfortably.
Writing
Refuses easy moral binaries at every turn.
Director
Michael Cuesta
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Paul Dano was 16 during filming; his mother had to approve the script due to its content.
Released months before 9/11, its Long Island setting and suburban dread now read as elegy for a vanished era.
US
