A sleazy, unsavory, but indeed quiet domestic melodrama, tracing the female-bonding experience of an In Crowd high-school "virgin" (Elisha Cuthbert) and the deaf-mute orphaned outcast (Camilla Belle) who comes to live under the same roof, and who, on the sly, performs concert-caliber Beethoven on the piano and turns out unsurprisingly to be neither deaf nor mute. Before the bond can form, the popular one must first be pried loose from the malign influence of a bitchy, bosomy, slutty fellow cheerleader -- obviously an important symbol to director Jamie Babbit, whose first feature was the lesbian pep fest, But I'm a Cheerleader, and here again no guarantee of heterosexuality, pending the closeness of the new bond. The very dim view of the Average American Family -- an incestuous father (Martin Donovan), a sedated, zombified mother (Edie Falco), and a spookily ill-lit, half-furnished suburban home -- adds an undertone of axe-grinding. Or, you might say, cheerleading. The players really put themselves into it, and almost, sometimes, partway, pull us in with them. (2006) — Duncan Shepherd
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