Innocence is a dangerous friend.<BR>&nbsp;

Innocence is a dangerous friend.

Interpreting fairy tales in psycho-sexual terms is nothing new, but in film it`s rare...trust Australian director John Duigan to grasp the challenge with the sort of material offered by playwright Naomi Wallace`s screenplay Lawn Dogs... the setting is the affluent walled `burbs of Kentucky...Devon`s family are relative newcomers but they`re determined to become part of the moving and grooving set as soon as possible.. Devon - Mischa Barton - is an oddity...she doesn`t want friends, she doesn`t want to sell cookies, she wants to explore the forest where the girl eating monster lives....it`s almost as if she`s drawn to locate Trent - Sam Rockwell. He mows lawns in her walled city of Camelot Gardens...and then retreats to his forest home...This film positively seethes with sexuality...Devon`s parents send her out selling cookies because they want her out of the house...her mother - Kathleen Quinlan - encourages one of the local lads in his sexual advances. His mate is drawn to Trent, and even though nothing is overt, the potentially dangerous relationship that develops Between Devon and Trent -- two outsiders, both with brushes with death behind them -- has a sexual quality. I really admire John Duigan in his quest to explore this most difficult of subjects intelligently on screen....and to a marked extent he succeeds with Lawn Dogs... It`s a shame that Mischa Barton is not quite convincing enough as a performer to carry the very heavy load expected of her...but in contrast Sam Rockwell soars - he is so fabulous as Trent ..this is a character with texture and Rockwell runs with him...It`s such a relief to see a film that has some sort of subtext these days, you could almost cry with relief, even if it doesn`t perfectly come off.