Excellent but underrated film

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

This has got to be a sad film based on a true story. It doesn't mean that everything in the film is exactly the same as true life events but there were some changes made. School is rife with friendships and bullies. Here there was no bullying, it was friends and the girl's own friends who did the murder. The true story is much more complex but the film itself focuses on the two BFF's and the arrival of a new girl. The new girl Ashley breaks apart the besties by choosing to befriend one of them and isolating the other. Also making her new friend not go on a date with this boy. The actress playing Ashley comes across as a very evil teenager who abuses her mother at home. As the film was based on a true story, it could've been told better with more realness, such as both girls plotting and planning to kill their friend. It made only Ashley the cold blooded killer while the other girl was reluctant. The only message in the film is not to trust your friends and don't sneak out at night without notifying your parents. The film could've added more updates on the outcome of the murderess' trials and the Skylar Law put into place because of this.

All in all, it was your pretty typical Lifetime movie. Teenagers behaving badly and a mom desperate for answers. I've seen better and I've seen worse. The acting was sub-par, but what really got me was the plot. It was rather dull, which is strange considering the subject matter. It has all that you need for a good Lifetime thriller, two teens kill their best friend AND it's based on a true story. In my opinion, here's what went wrong, they should've told a story that more closely resembled the real one. Not just because it would've been more truthful, but because the real story is actually much more interesting.In the film two girls, Jade and Sara, who have been best friends forever, meet a cool new girl named Ashley. The girls invite Ashley to hang out with them and the three become quick friends. It then becomes clear that Ashley and Sara don't see eye to eye and Ashley obviously wants Jade all to herself and after overhearing Sara saying some mean things about her, Ashley tells Jade they should get rid of her. Jade agrees, thinking they'll play a cruel prank on her or something along those lines so she and Ashley convince Sara to sneak out of her house one night so the three can hang out. Jade then drives to a secluded warehouse where Ashley takes Sara inside and promptly begins to stab her while Jade waits outside until she hears her friend's screams. When she runs inside, Sara as begging for her life, Jade is in tears, hoping to help her, but her friend quickly dies. Ashley convinces Jade to cover it up, but Jade is feeling immensely guilty and after a few days she tells Sara's mom the truth and eventually the two go to jail. Now, I know that Lifetime movies that are based on true stories are often over-dramatized and changed for television, which I get, but why change a story so much when the truth is so creepily fascinating? The real Sara, a girl named Skylar Neese, was a victim of completely pre-meditated murder by BOTH of her best friends. The girls had been planning it for months and on the night of the murder they brought along knives, bleach, shovels etc. completely prepared to brutally stab their best friend. They lured her to a place in the woods where the three had smoked pot together, then when her back was turned, the two stabbed her over 50 times. They hid her body under a bunch of leaves and went home like nothing had ever happened. When Skyler's body was eventually found, one of the two who committed the murder even posted a picture on twitter, honoring the friend she had killed. I mean, this story is just plain FREAKY. A group of totally normal friends turned to murder. These girls were clearly sociopaths, the story received such a large amount of media attention for a reason, it was completely insane. According to the girls, they killed her because "they didn't like here anymore." Some believe that their friendship became torn because Skyler witnessed the two having a secret lesbian relationship. So my question is, why change it so much? The real version of what happened sounds like a Lifetime movie within itself, so why alter it for television? I just think the films could've been much more captivating if it closely resembled the real story. In my opinion, there wasn't a need for the changes, they were dull and uninteresting.The one aspect of the movie that I enjoyed was the story line involving the parents. Ashley's mom being an alcoholic gave the character some depth and an explanation for her madness. Sara's mom's commitment to finding out the truth about her daughter was also interesting, but again, I think that the girl's characters didn't need to be changed so much. I don't understand why they tossed out reality in favor of something less stimulating. All in all, the film had potential, but sorely lacked.

Not a bad movie at all. It started pretty cheesy then ended up catching my attention and it kept me interested. It was predictable at times but the emotional side of this movie is what kept me watching. I felt so sorry for the victim's (sara) family. Sara's mother played her part very well. So did the victim's friend. I could put myself in the characters' shoes therefore the acting was pretty good overall. This movie upset me as I found it to be very realistic. Not many movies make me cry, but this one sure did. Definitely worth a watch.

There was some good acting here, and the movie moved along fine. In the end, though, I was left disappointed that the movie was too "based on a true story" to be good fiction, but too fictionalized to be a good docudrama. It kinda slipped into the crack in between.Tina Ivlev is absurdly sexy, but her character here is so obviously psycho that it's hard to even try to warm up to her. Right from the start she's disturbingly flippant and manipulative. There's never a moment of horrifying realization for the audience, here; the outcome seems telegraphed from the very early going. With no mystery, it seems that the only thing we're watching to see is everybody's reactions to what we know is going to happen.Despite those and other flaws, the movie-making quality level is decent here, for the most part. It's really just the script that needed some work, I think. I give this 5/10 for being watchable but forgettable.What I did take away from this is that I will eagerly look forward to more from both Tina and Brittany, two lovely and talented young actresses. (If they make a movie about Helen Hunt's life, I vote Tina to play her. Eerie resemblance, IMO.)