...went absolutely NOWHERE. The last thing anyone knew, he had leaned over her in the car! I'm sorry, I think this movie could've been a little edgier, creepier, and more exciting to watch if this particular theme had carried through to the end.
Maybe. I don't know. I thought that part was too painfully trite. However, I think instead of using Rita Wilson for Ruby's mother, they should have used Helen hunt. And instead of whoever played the father, that should have been Richard Dreyfuss, based SOLELY on the kid who played Ruby's brother.
Considering Terry's motive (the trust fund), he should have done everything possible to keep the kids content and from being suspicious about him. He buys off the boy with computer games. But he seems to do everything possible to let the girl know that he's up to no good. In the car with her, he drives like a maniac, knowing full well she's still grieving from the loss of her parents in a car crash. Then he makes a pass at her. He puts brother and sister in the same bedroom, which made them uneasy right from the start. But when the child services inspector visited, he had already set up an extra bedroom for the girl. So why didn't he just do that from the start?
It's as if the writer wanted to hit the viewer over the head with the fact that Terry was a bad guy. But it was not done realistically. Rather than trying to fool both kids into being content to live there, Terry tries to make the boy happy while sending neon-sign sized messages to the girl that he is the villain. The script would have better if the viewer suspected, but was not sure, that Terry and Erin had bad intent. But the writer was so intent on making sure the viewer knew who the bad guys were that he had them act totally irrationally, just to make the point.
I agree,both scenes could have been done in a much more subtle way,but then again,beings it was only two hour movie the bad guy had to be established fairly quickly.
Yeah. I thought it was weird that they kind of half assedly did something with this and then stopped. It was as if they didn't really know what they wanted to do with the plot. I don't mean that this had to be the whole story, and that it had to become all about his attraction towards her, but it should have played into something else if they were going to make notice of it at all.