Review of An American Crime

Synopsis of the Cast of Characters

By Lynn A. Granata

Gertrude:

The main character is played by Katherine Keener, Ms. Keener is beautiful, charismatic and gracious compared to the real-life Gertrude who was a haggard monster.

Sylvia:

She is played by Canadian actress Ellen Page, who presents a striking resemblance to the true to life Sylvia.

Jenny:

 If I am not certain of the actress/actor's name, I will only describe the player's role as that character. Since I don't know Jenny's actress' real name, her acting was great and she played Jenny very well from start to finish. Except she wore the leg iron on her right leg in the movie.

Mr. Likens:

 His actor was much more debonair than the real Mr.Likens who appeared uncouth, a typical carnival barker.

Mrs. Likens:

 In real life she was serving time in jail for a shoplifting charge, and wasn't present until after the girls were already living in and contracted into the Baniszewski lease. In the movie, she appears early on as though nothing didn't happen, and was there with the girls when they first attended church, instead she goes off with Mr. Likens to reconcile their cracking marriage.

Attorney Bowman:

 He is the star prosecuting attorney who is cross examining each child and adult witness for the state of Indiana. He is an intelligent prosecutor and leaves no stone unturned in order to solve this grisly murder.

Paula Baniszewski:

 Ari Graynor, plays Paula and she is marvelous as her character in the movie. In real life, Paula was doing most of the beatings and other forms of abuse and torture to Sylvia.  Gertrude started it off, but Paula continued where she left off.  Also, in the movie, she later sympathsizes with Sylvia and forgives her for letting the cat out of the bag, by telling Bradley she's pregnant. In reality she was probably the worst abuser of the lot, and she inflicted a lot of the damage, more than Gertrude did. And didn't sympathsize with Sylvia at all.

Stephanie Baniszewski:

  The second eldest sister of the lot.  She in the movie mostly appears with her boyfriend Coy. Stephanie is hardly present while all this is going on in her mother's home. She walked in when Sylvia was being forced to insert the coke bottle, and actually saved Sylvia from more humiliation. At the end of the movie, Stephanie is probably the only other person living in that household that cared about Sylvia enough to try to save her with artificial respiration.

Marie Baniszewski:

 She is one of the (younger) cute golden haired girls on the stand, the first child witness to testify against her mother's activities that landed them all in the court house.

Shirley Baniszewski:

She is the second younger daughter to get up on the stand, she too has long golden hair and she answers each question very honestly.

John Baniszewski Jr.:

 He is the small boy you see teasing the dog, and then later on taking the other children in the neighborhood down to the basement to see Sylvia lying severely injured on the cold cement floor. He shows his friends what he has been doing to Sylvia, burning her with cigarettes, and kicking her in the face and arms. He tells them that their mother said that they could do whatever they wanted to Sylvia because she's a slut.

Baby Dennis Wright:

 In the movie they call him baby Kenny. He is the infant son of Andy Wright, Gertrude's on again off again boyfriend. 

Ricky Hobbs:

 The fuzzy haired boy with the black horned rimmed glasses. He in the film, appears to like Sylvia, or he has a crush on her, asking her out and following her around. But, Gertrude butters up to him, inviting him over in the afternoons after school just to have a smoke and idle chat. Gertrude discourages him from chasing Sylvia, because Sylvia really isn't interested in him as a boyfriend.

Coy Hubbard:

Stephanie's steady boyfriend, he drives a blue pick up truck, he and Stephanie go out on dates and go parking then make out inside the truck, but she never allows him to go beyond second base. In real life, Coy was the one who supposedly administered the very final fatal blow to Sylvia's head, killing her, she had died from a subdural hematoma. In An American Crime he is shown throwing her down the cellar stairs along with John Jr. and that's pretty much all he does in the movie.

Randy Lepper:

 The shaggy haired boy who is friendly with Stephanie and Coy. He later appears on the witness stand and when asked why he hurt Sylvia, he answers, because "Gertie told me to."

Sally Duke:

 She is the girl in the basement with John Jr. and the other kids, she has long curly brown hair, after John burns Sylvia with the cigarette, she says no, but then she does it anyway because the others told her it was okay. She testifys on the stand that Gertie said it was okay.

Pattie Siscoe:

 Another girl from the neighborhood, she was on the stand, with blonde hair, she testifies that Gertie made Sylvia insert the coke bottle.

Reverand Julian:

 The priest of the neighborhood church that they all attended together.  He made regular house visits to all the congregants in his church. He was concerned about Sylvia, he hadn't seen her in weeks. And Paula told him that she had hatred in her heart for Sylvia.

Several Neighborhood Children:

A few here and there appeared in the film the extras, some were in the basement laughing at Sylvia being tossed around the basement by the older boys.

Hope:

The lady boarding the bus at the beginning of the film. She had a pink kasmir suit on, and Gertrude asks her that if she knows anybody who needs ironing done to let her know.

Mrs. Vermillion:

 The lady who lived next door to the Baniszewski's along with her husband.  She could have helped Sylvia because she heard a lot of Sylvia's screams and blood curdling cries, but did nothing. She appears on the stand and testifies that she didn't want to judge Gertrude nor interfere with her life.

Bradley:

Paula's blonde-haired married boyfriend and the father of her unborn child. He manages/owns a liquor store in town, and it was a popular watering hole for all the teenagers. He no longer wishes to court Paula, and tells her that his wife returned from her trip. Sylvia overhears the commotion behind the store, and rushes in to aid Paula, but Paula objects to her help, and gets very mad, threatening that she will pay for not keeping their secret.

Andy:

 Gertrude's boyfriend and the father of baby Denny/Kenny. She took his surname as an alias, eventhough she wasn't married to him, so that there would be no raised eye brows in the small Indianapolis hamlet.

Eric:

A fictious boyfriend that Sylvia seems to have dreamt up. Sylvia could have been saved if only Eric knew. That is why he had to have been in her dream. It shows when he drops her off at the house, but the others don't seem to notice him, as he really isn't there. Eric first appears in church, right when Sylvia was being blamed for Paula's grievances. Although he looks real, there was imagery in this film that showed dream-like surrealism of the most horrible events which took place in reality. What I mean by this is that Sylvia appears to have escaped from the prison confines of that house. She and Paula walk by her (Gertrude) mother while she is asleep and Paula sets Sylvia free.  Ricky Hobbs goes to his house and gets a car and asks Sylvia what she wants to do? And Sylvia replies that she wants to go to Portage and be with her parents. Sylvia spends her last few moments with her parents and then they drop her back off at the house.  Come to find out, Sylvia never left the house and it was all a dream. While Sylvia was being bathed upstairs in the bathroom, she may have been having near death experiences, then passed away. After that in reality they carried her to the dirty mattress and laid her there. She wasn't breathing as Stephanie was trying in vain to resusitate her, then she screams frantically at Ricky Hobbs to go call the police, and he runs across the street to a pay phone to make the call.