Wicked

Wicked is a 1998 American thriller film directed by Michael Steinberg and starring Julia Stiles as a disturbed teenage girl. The film also stars Michael Parks and William R. Moses. The film debuted at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival but had a delayed release due to a financial dispute between a producer and the studio. The film was released on DVD in 2001. Plot Fourteen-year-old Ellie Christianson lives in an affluent neighborhood with her parents, Karen and Ben, and younger sister, Inger. Beneath their privileged life-style is one tinged with dysfunction and chaos. Ben is a workaholic with a hectic schedule that keeps him away from home for most of the day but he's carrying on an affair with the housekeeper, Lena. Karen, meanwhile, passes the time by pursuing an illicit love affair with the family's next-door neighbor, Lawson Smith, while her daughters are getting ready for school. Karen plans to leave her husband and take the girls so she fires Lena as a means to begin her getaway. She is completely unaware that Ellie has secretly witnessed one of her liaisons with Lawson. Karen has an ongoing tumultuous relationship with Ellie, culminating in a heated confrontation one day after Ellie disobeys an order to not wear too much make-up at school. Ellie ends up remorselessly killing her mother in a fit of rage. She begins to assume Karen's wifely duties to Ben around the house and to pursue an unhealthy relationship with him.