Wicked (1998 film)
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. 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. 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. She impulsively fires Lena Anderson, her housekeeper, as a means to spend more free time with Lawson, and is completely unaware that a shocked Ellie has secretly witnessed one of their liaisons. 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 by waiting for him  in bed at night, dressed only in lingerie. However, Ben gradually develops some romantic feelings for the former housekeeper, Lena, and they eventually marry. The impromptu wedding ceremony ignites feelings of jealousy for Ellie as she wanted to be his wife all along. While the supposed love triangle is playing out in Ellie's mind, her mother's tragic "accident" is investigated by Detective Boland. When Karen's "accident" is subsequently ruled as a murder, he names Ellie as the prime suspect. She immediately decides to run away from home, going to Portland with her dead mother's lover, Lawson , in tow. After her family goes on an hours-long fruitless search for Ellie, she unexpectedly returns to the house. She is greeted by Inger, who knows full well what had really happened to her mother. Inger ends up murdering Ellie, essentially inheriting her "wicked" nature. Release. "Wicked" debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January 1998 where it wowed audiences and earned good reviews. Stiles, at sixteen, was launched as a new star. The film was picked by Paramount for release to three hundred theatres nationwide in October 1998, but a financial dispute between the producer and the studio , followed by an artistic battle between the producer and the director, put the film in limbo. Stiles went on to star in "10 Things I Hate About You" and "Save the Last Dance" before the dispute over the score, by Cliff Martinez, and "final cut" of the picture, was resolved. "Wicked" was finally released to video in August, 2001.