In director Robert Schmidt`s adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky`s classic novel CRIME AND PUNISHMENT (the in Suburbia is Schmidt`s addition), the role of the protagonist is played not by a troubled young man who kills his landlady, but by a teenage girl (Monica Keena) who murders an older man who has been molesting her. The punishment, rather than a police interrogation and exile to Siberia, is a series of psychological discussions with a common cop who has a romantic interest in her. An interesting take on an old story, the film raises the nagging moral questions: When is a crime justifiable? and How does the punishment fit the crime?
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