Indie darlings Chloe Sevigny and Kristen Stewart star in this retelling of the Lizzie Borden story. We all know the old rhyme. “Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks, and when she saw what she had done she gave her father forty-one.” Right away, we know the film is going against the “print the legend” philosophy because we learn her mother is already dead and her father has remarried. I guess “stepmother” didn’t sound as good in the rhyme.
Bridget (Stewart) is a maid who comes to work in the Borden household. Daughter Lizzie (Sevigny) is prone to “spells” and her headstrong antics exasperate her strained relationship with her stern father (Jamie Sheridan from The Stand). Dad is a sleazeball by the way. Not only does his shady business practices make him enemies all around town, but he also likes to force himself on Bridget at night. Bridget and Lizzie form a friendship that soon blossoms into a romance. Naturally, her father’s increasingly erratic behavior threatens to separate them. When he and his wife are murdered the fingers are all pointed at Lizzie, but did she really do it?
Sevigny and Stewart are both excellent. The film is more interested in exploring their relationship than wallowing in the details of the grisly axe murders. (We don’t see them till near the end.) For a while, it works extremely well. Things start to become sluggish though once the movie enters its third act. Still, the strength of the performances keeps things glued together, even when the narrative dawdles. It also helps that the murders themselves pack a punch, as it will appeal to true crime buffs and Celebrity Skin aficionados equally. (Spoiler Alert: They occur while the killer is totally nude!)
It’s not perfect, but I liked the film’s feminist spirit. It frames Lizzie’s plight as not as much of a crime but rather a women’s and/or gay rights issue. She is often shown to be ostracized not only by her family, but by society for who she is. It’s little wonder why someone would snap and start hacking away at the people who hold her back and stand in the way of her happiness.
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