film synopsis
A sensation at Sundance, Cory Finley's darkly dazzling debut tells a modern story with echoes of macabre Hitchcockian plotting.
Amanda and Lily get together for study sessions in the huge Connecticut mansion where Lily lives with her mother and despised step-dad. Lily is both unnerved and drawn to the odd, affectless Amanda, a girl who freely admits she has no feelings, but who has developed a technique to cry on demand. Lily is a bit strange herself, which may be why her parents plan to send her to a college for emotionally disturbed girls. Feeding off each other's darkest instincts, the two sociopaths devise a deadly crime, and then rope a pathetic, scheming ex-con—played by Anton Yelchin in his final role—into their plot.
Acclaimed playwright Finley adapts his own stage play into an immensely satisfying cinematic experience, his twisted tale conjuring up a privileged world where empathy is an alien concept.
In competition for the New Voices New Visions Award.