Review – The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane

Ick. This is one of those movies that insists on being unpleasant from beginning to end, deftly avoiding every opportunity to redeem itself in any way. Jodie Foster (back when she was age-appropriate to the role) stars as a 13-year-old girl trying to hide the fact that she lives by herself. That alone wouldn’t have been so bad, nor would the stiff, theatrical dialogue and plot structure (almost the entire movie takes place in her living room). But then Martin Sheen shows up as a pervert intent on playing his little molestation games with her. One of these stunts involves the torturing and killing of her pet hamster, which cost the production an entire rating point. And don’t even get me started on the nude scene that has to be a child molester’s wet dream (and Foster being body doubled by her of-legal-age older sister didn’t make it dramatically less creepy). Overall the piece is poorly constructed and generally hard to look at. Wish I’d skipped it