Lawn Dogs

Lawn Dogs is a 1997 fantasy-drama film directed by John Duigan and starring Mischa Barton and Sam Rockwell. The film tells the story of a precocious young girl (Barton) from a gated community who befriends a landscape worker (Rockwell), and examines the societal repercussions of their friendship. Written by Naomi Wallace, the film was released by Rank Organisation, and was the company's last production. The film uses the folktale of Baba Yaga as a prominent plot device. Although filmed in Louisville and Danville, Kentucky in the United States, Lawn Dogs was a British film produced by Duncan Kenworthy. Lawn Dogs won numerous film awards at film festivals in Europe and met with generally positive reviews, with praise for the performances of Barton and Rockwell in particular. Plot Ten-year-old Devon Stockard, a precocious and lonely young girl, has recently moved into the gated community Camelot Gardens in the Louisville, Kentucky suburbs with her parents, Morton and Clare. Recently recovered from open heart surgery, Devon is encouraged by her parents to make friends, and is pushed to sell cookies for a charity event for the summer. While selling the cookies, Devon leaves the gated community against her mother's instructions, and meets Trent Burns, a landscaper living in a trailer in the woods, who works in Camelot Gardens. Imaginative, Devon pretends her life is like the fable of Baba Yaga.