# The Glass House (2001 film)

The Glass House is a 2001 American thriller film directed by Daniel Sackheim and written by Wesley Strick. Starring Leelee Sobieski, Diane Lane and Stellan Skarsgård, the film also features Bruce Dern, Kathy Baker, Trevor Morgan and Chris Noth in supporting roles. The plot follows two siblings who go to live with friends of their parents as the oldest of the siblings starts to get suspicious of the family friends' patriarch.
Theatrically released in the United States on September 14, 2001, by Columbia Pictures, The Glass House grossed US$23.6 million worldwide and received mixed reviews from critics. Negative reviews were critical of Strick's script, while positive reviews praised the performances of the lead cast (particularly Lane and Skarsgård).

## Plot

After losing their parents in a car accident, 16-year-old Ruby Baker and her 11-year-old brother Rhett are placed under the guardianship of family friends and former neighbors, the couple Dr. Erin Glass and Terrence "Terry" Glass. Erin is a respected physician and Terry runs a high-end car dealership; they live in a large glass house in Malibu.
The siblings are transferred from private to public school mid-year. Ruby is uncomfortable with Terry's sexual hints and reckless driving when they are alone. She later finds Erin injecting herself with unlabeled pharmaceuticals, claiming that it is for diabetes. Ruby shares her concerns with the siblings' estate and trust fund lawyer, Alvin Begleiter, who is skeptical of her claims, as she was going through a rebellious phase prior to her parents' deaths, ultimately being suspended from school for plagiarism. Ruby pushes Begleiter to get social services involved, but the visiting social worker is taken in by the couple's assurances.
In the trash, Ruby discovers a postcard sent by her estranged uncle Jack Avery from Chicago that she was never shown containing his contact details, and a letter from a private school, indicating that the Glasses unregistered the siblings and pocketed the $30,000+ tuition. Terry is in debt to loan sharks, and Erin has a severe drug addiction which she is subsidizing via prescription fraud and stealing drugs from her employer. The Glasses are after the siblings' trust fund, totaling $4 million.
Ruby reads an online article stating that her father had been driving a BMW at the time of the accident, though he owned a Saab. A damaged car similar to her father's is at Terry's shop, and the BMW her parents were driving was registered to Terry's business. After the loan sharks push him to pay off his debt, Terry tries to obtain money from the trust fund through the account trustee. Terry's request is denied and he is shown a copy of the letter from the private school, faxed to the trustee by Ruby, and raising suspicions about his intentions with the money. Later, Ruby is confronted by the vice-principal because an essay, which Terry wrote seemingly to win her favor, was plagiarized, leaving her future at the school uncertain.
That night, Ruby finds a brochure for a boarding school for teenage girls. Once the Glasses are asleep, Ruby attempts to escape with Rhett in Terry's Jaguar, but they are stopped by the police because of a mudslide ahead. The Glasses catch up to the siblings and take them back home. When Ruby attempts to escape again, Terry knocks her down and Erin sedates her. After Erin's drug abuse and theft is discovered by her employer, she is permanently stripped of her medical license. Distraught and guilty, Erin uses the remaining drugs to commit suicide by overdose.
Ruby wakes up from her sedation and discovers Erin's body next to her in bed. Terry locks the siblings in the basement and sabotages his Jaguar, expecting them to reattempt escape in the car. The siblings break out of the basement and attempt to flee when Mr. Begleiter arrives to speak to Terry. Begleiter had been informing Terry about Ruby's reports to him and has grown suspicious after a call from the bank saying that the guardianship is under investigation. The loan sharks then appear, and Terry claims that the one responsible for his debt is Begleiter. The loan sharks stab Begleiter before repossessing two of Terry's cars. Overhearing Terry begging them to take the Volvo instead of the Jaguar, Ruby covertly stabs the Volvo's tires, forcing them to leave in the Jaguar with him in it. Because of Terry's tampering, they lose control of the Jaguar, accidentally ramming the Ferrari into oncoming traffic and crashing.
The siblings flee on foot and are picked up by a police officer. Coming across the accident scene, the officer stops to investigate. Terry then knocks the officer out. Severely injured, Terry staggers toward Ruby and Rhett, hiding a gun. Ruby jumps into the driver's seat and speeds into Terry, killing him.
The siblings later place flowers at their parents' grave with their uncle Jack. The three then leave to go to live in Chicago.

## Cast

* Leelee Sobieski as Ruby Baker
* Diane Lane as Dr. Erin Glass
* Stellan Skarsgård as Terrence "Terry" Glass
* Bruce Dern as Alvin Begleiter
* Kathy Baker as Nancy Ryan
* Trevor Morgan as Rhett Baker
* Chris Noth as Jack Avery
* Michael O'Keefe as David Baker
* Rita Wilson as Grace Avery-Baker
* Vyto Ruginis as Don
* Gavin O'Connor as Whitey
* Carly Pope as Tasha
* China Jesusita Shavers as E.B.
* Agnes Bruckner as Zoe
* Michael Paul Chan as Mr. Kim
* Rachel Wilson as Hannah
* Rutanya Alda as vice principal
* John Billingsley as a driving instructor
* Julia Vera as Vicki
* Shelby Roberts as high school girl #1

## Release
### Home media

The Glass House was released on VHS and DVD on January 2, 2002. A Blu-ray version of the film has yet to be released in the United States. It finally debuted on the Blu-ray format for the first time on October 22, 2021, in Germany in a Blu-ray and DVD combo pack by Just Bridge Entertainment. The original cut of the film was reported to be 180 minutes long, with 74 minutes of footage missing from the theatrical cut. Kip Pardue was Leelee Sobieski's love interest in the original cut, though all of his scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. Of all the deleted footage, only two scenes managed to survive. They are included on the DVD as deleted scenes (listed below):
* After Ruby faints when she finds the cops at her house, she wakes up the next morning believing her parents' accident was only a nightmare. When she heads downstairs, the neighbors are there to tell her it wasn't. Ruby sits at the table and cries as the camera slowly pans away from her, as Rhett is told off-screen and runs away in devastation.
* Ruby and Rhett are seen at their parents' funeral burying their ashes at the cemetery.
There is also one scene in the trailer showing Ruby furiously ripping posters off her room's wall, which does not appear in the final product.
Because of the film's critical and financial failure, Columbia Pictures had little interest in keeping unused footage and the missing 74 minutes of footage have since been considered lost.

## Reception
### Box office

The film opened at No. 2 in its opening weekend at the United States' box office, behind Hardball, in which Diane Lane also stars. The Glass House grossed $18,150,259 domestically and $5,469,350 overseas, grossing a total of $23,619,609.

### Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes reports that the film received positive reviews by 21% of the 86 surveyed critics. The average rating was 4.23/10, and the consensus is: "Due to obvious plot twists and foreshadowing, The Glass House fails to thrill. By the end, it degenerates into ludicrousness." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 34 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale. Roger Ebert rated it two out of four stars and criticized the film's script. Writing for The New York Times, A. O. Scott called the film unintentionally funny. Robert Koehler of Variety also called it unintentionally funny and questioned why so many talented actors signed on to a poor script. Edward Guthmann of the San Francisco Chronicle criticized the film's violence and the timing of the release, which coincided with the September 11 attacks (in fact, for many film critics it was the first movie they saw after returning to work). In a more positive review, USA Today's Claudia Puig rated the film two out of four stars, calling it "eerily engrossing".

## Sequel

A direct-to-video sequel was released in 2006. It did not feature any of the characters of the original film and did not take place in the same house.