An American Crime (2007)

Summary:

Based off of the true child murder of Sylvia Likens, An American Crime portrays Sylvia Likens’ story as a brutal narrative. Gertrude Baniszewski, a single suburban mother of seven, takes in Sylvia and her sister Jennie as their parents travel with their carnival. When her oldest daughter Paula gets in trouble and blames Sylvia, Gertrude “punishes” her for her actions. Gertrude soon begins to lash out all of her troubles onto Sylvia and locks her in the basement to torture her. Gertrude encourages her children and neighborhood kids to torture and humiliate Sylvia as she is held captive in the basement.

Review:

Wow, this story is one of the most disturbing things I’ve heard about in a while. This film is not for the faint of heart which is sad to say, because it’s a watered down portrayal of everything that happened to Sylvia Likens in her time with Gertrude Baniszewski. The film paints a picture of a truly shocking display of child abuse and the darkness of human nature. As a film alone the story told is horrendous, but the fact that this actually happened makes it all the more terrifying.

The film goes back and forth between the court case, and the events of Sylvia’s time in the Baniszewski care leading up to her death. This was interesting to see, because some of the details of her torture were spoken about through testimonies and some were shown through flashbacks. Even though some incidents weren’t acted out, it was just as shocking hearing the character’s speak out about the events during the court scenes.

During the film, we see Gertrude self medicating and dealing with stress over finances constantly. Money was one of the biggest issues for her hardships. The first time Gertrude lashed out on Sylvia was very unsettling, because she went over the edge after not receiving a payment of 20$ from the Likens’ family. Sylvia voluntarily took her and her sister’s punishment of being whipped with a belt by Gertrude. Gertrude had told the girls that since she didn’t receive the payment, she believed her parents must’ve left them in her care and abandoned them. She received the payment in the mail a few days later, and also received every following payment regularly. The scene was infuriating to watch, because of how extreme Gertrude was. If I found out that someone even yelled at my kid I’d raise hell.

The torture quickly escallates even to the point where Gertrude carved “I’m a prostitute and I’m proud of it” onto Sylvia’s stomach with a hot needle. She does this while saying “You branded my daughters, now I’m going to brand you.” The line was chilling and gut wrenching. It’s also a quote from the actual Gertrude. Her character was very ironic, because she escallated the torture onto Sylvia thinking that she’s spread rumors of her daughter. Gertrude says that Sylvia lies and deserves punishment, but continues to lie to others about Sylvia’s whereabouts and what is happening to her. She also tells her children to lie about Sylvia being in juvenile detention when in reality she’s being tormented in the basement. The character of Gertrude is ironic, cruel, and manipulative. Her portrayal in the film is a good reflection as to who she was in real life. Especially with some quotes from the real Gertrude Baniszewski, the viewers can better imagine how evil this woman was.

Other characters that struck me were Paula, her siblings, and the neighborhood children. Encouraged by their mother, they’d attack Sylvia without any remorse. It’s crazy to imagine how without any rules they’d just excuse their morales, because they can. They’d torture her for the hell of it, and nobody thought to go to the police. I felt that this was also ironic, because all of the children were frequent church goers. I also didn’t understand how rumors of Paula being pregnant spread and caused more attention than a girl being held prisoner in the basement.

Paula’s character herself was also interesting, because she allowed and encouraged Sylvia being tortured over commotion of her own issues. She was so embarrassed and upset that people started talking about her being pregnant that she let Sylvia be beaten and tortured even after she had beaten her herself. She lied to her mom about the pregnancy and said that Sylvia made it up. But when Gertrude found out about the truth, the family still continued to torture her.

I would’ve liked to see more of the neighborhood kid’s testimonies and hear about their experiences with her. Why they felt compelled to torture her, and why they didn’t go to the police. They responded to similar questions by saying “I don’t know” and they just did it. In the actual Likens’ case the neighborhood kids did more than just beat her and burn her with cigarettes. Especially Coy Hubbard, I wanted to see more of that character since he was a bigger piece in the case.

The relationship of Sylvia and Jenny was definitely well portrayed, Sylvia was known for caring for Jenny and protecting her as much as she could. Jenny also went through beatings and heavy mental torture, which I thought should’ve had a bigger part in the film. I would’ve liked to see more emphasis on that in the film, because there were a couple times that Jenny could’ve notified outsiders, but didn’t. There was also an occasion when a social service worker came to the Baniszewski residence, but Jenny was forced to lie to them and say that her sister had run away. If they had that in the film I think that would’ve shown a lot about how manipulated and scared Jenny was.

The film did a great job at showing how evil this murder was, and Ellen Page did a fantastic job with the portrayal of Sylvia Likens. It’s very unsettling to watch, but it does reflect the actual case well through a narrative following Sylvia. Of course, not every detail of her torture was shown. Neither was what fully happened to her sister, but the point and emotion of the film gets across. An American Crime is a great film being very captivating as well as being informative of the brutal and heartbreaking case.