alannasser This couldn't have been a Lifetime movie. But it was. This makes two -as far as I know- Lifetime thrillers that are not essentially remakes of every other Lifetime thriller, and are unusually engaging. The reviews above give a good sense of the plot. And some of the irate and morally offended viewers give the quite reliable impression that this is a bent, unconventional and more-than-mildly-incorrect little picture. You don't expect stuff this dark in TV movies, and certainly not on Lifetime. But in this case that's what you get. The sordid plot is not the only virtue of this flick: it's very well put together montage-wise, and in this respect has the look of a good theatrical release. Julia Stiles is, as always, a thoroughly accomplished actor.The other unexpectedly good Lifetime movie to which I refer above is Ladies Night, with a remarkable performance by Paul Michael Glaser.

sarastro7 I get more and more respect for Julia Stiles, the more movies I see with her. Initially, I considered her rather boring and not even particularly pretty, but now that I've seen a wide selection of her choice of roles, I find her growing on me in a big way! She's been in Shakespeare movies and she's generally not afraid to tackle difficult, uncommercial and controversial material. Save The Last Dance was a great experience for me; I could watch it over and over. So of course I also had to get Wicked. In fact, after looking for it for a long time, I was finally able to buy it as a second-hand DVD from a friend.The movie was something quite different than I expected. I thought it was going to have supernatural elements, but it didn't. Instead it was a fairly low-key drama about how social and especially familial misery is perpetuated. How people continue down bad roads because they mimic what they see their role models (usually older family members) do.The general structure of the movie is that of a murder mystery, and a quite effective one. Ellie's mother is killed, and seemingly everyone in the family and communal vicinity are unstable enough to be suspects. Was it the baby-sitter, the father or the neighbor? Or was it Ellie herself, whose relationship with her mother was particularly bad, even hateful? There seems, from the user comments here, to be differing opinions about who the murderer was, because the end of the movie is not very specific about the first murder. Was it Ellie or her younger sister? In my opinion, it makes by far the most sense if it was Ellie. The younger sister ended up killing Ellie, of course, but there is no logic to her being the first murderer. Instead there is plenty of logic to Ellie being the first murderer, because her younger sister was just mimicking Ellie. In fact, I'm sure this is the case, because of the strangle-hold episode, where Ellie nearly strangles her sister - this would have "inspired" her sister to conclude that this was the proper sort of way to deal with a problematic situation. (Indeed, the first murder *cannot* have been committed by the younger sister, due to her reaction to her discovery of the suitcase containing the murder weapon.)So, the movie was about "monkey see, monkey do", or, as Shakespeare put it, "the evil that men do lives after them". We first have Ellie trying to replace her mother as the woman of the house, incl. all marital duties, and when she partially achieves this, her sister subsequently replaces Ellie's earlier role in the house, starting also to carry out the tasks that she saw Ellie do. Essentially, the youngest sister is trying to replace Ellie, just as Ellie tried to replace their mother, and using most of the same methods to achieve it - even murder.Yes, it is an updated version of the Electra story, and it is also a statement about the dangers of isolation. Taking place in a gated community that is meant to shut out the evils of the world, we see that those evils continue in our midst, because with the gated community we have done nothing but *pretend* that those evils were not part of us - in other words, we have glossed over some symptoms but not dealt with the causes.Even beyond this, there are many interesting non-literal elements to think about in this movie. For instance, the opening, with the blond girl that we think is Ellie driving around (intercut with scenes of Ellie packing), but is really Lena, must be meant to indicate that Ellie's father likes women with that look. So maybe he had a subconscious reverse-Oedipal complex towards his daughter, too. In general, the father was an unassertive and weak-minded man that one couldn't feel much sympathy for.Anyway, the movie is well-acted and quite absorbing on most levels. The one thing that keeps it from a higher rating is that it simply isn't believable that the 11 or 12-year-old young sister is capable of the brutal murder of her older sister - maybe she had the will to do it, but it's highly doubtful that she had the physical strength. However, because of the symbolism and nice structure to the movie, I can accept the ending - but only just.I'm looking forward to a second viewing, where I may notice more details.My rating: A very solid 7 out of 10.

emdoub 7 out of 10 for the performances - while the characters were often cardboard cutouts, the actors and director *sold* those characters pretty well.I've seen other reviewers comment that the ending was unbelievable - I suggest that they re-watch the movie and look again. Obvious misdirection toward Ms. Stiles' character make the plot twist work, quite wickedly.(Here's the spoiler, for those who don't want to sit through this twice - Julia Stiles' character is not innocent of anything but matricide, but she didn't do that.) Some interesting characterizations, some new twists on the Electra plot, some great camera-work, and a topic that's not often seen on film - a daughter's heavy fixation on her father as a love interest. Not a film to write home about, but an enjoyable and surprising 90 minutes.

gridoon What's the use of watching movies if you're unwilling or too prejudiced to spot a genuinely talented filmmaker, regardless of the genre (or the budget) he's working with? Michael Steinberg shows, in this particular movie at least, that he is such a talent; his virtuosity is reminiscent of De Palma in his prime (think "Body Double"), and some of his subjective tracking shots would put Carpenter to shame. It's true that the script is formulaic and unoriginal (has a great twist ending, though). But thanks to the direction and the good performances in each and every role, "Wicked" is a taut, gripping and occasionally steamy little thriller. Worth a look for anyone with even a passing interest in the genre. (**1/2)