Rating: R
Genre:
Drama
Release Date: 12/08/1998
SubTitles: French/Espanol
Run Time: 101 Minutes
Flags: Adult Situations, Adult Language, Sexual Situations
Distributor/Studio: Lions Gate
A young girl finds friendship on the wrong side of the career tracks in this drama. Camelot Gardens is a "gated community" where wealthy people can purchase luxurious (if sterile) homes and a security force ensures that riffraff will be kept away from your door after nightfall. The Stockard family are new arrivals at Camelot Gardens; father Morton (
Christopher McDonald) is a businessman who wants to go into politics, while mother Clare (
Kathleen Quinlan) busies herself with affairs with younger men. Neither seems to have much time for their 10-year-old daughter Devon (
Mischa Barton), who doesn't care for children her own age; Devon's uncle likes to entertain her with stories about a witch named Baba Yaga who lives in the forest, so one day she wanders into the nearby woods looking for Baba. Instead, she finds a trailer that's home to Trent (
Sam Rockwell), a 20-something free spirit who scrapes together a living by mowing the lawns of Camelot Gardens. Devon and Trent both have physical and emotional scars to deal with, and they soon become friends and confidantes; however, Devon's parents become upset when they learn that their daughter's best friend is a grown man, particularly one who lives in a trailer and does lawn maintenance for a living.
Lawn Dogs won awards at a number of international film festivals in 1997, including the
Stockholm Film Festival, the
Montreal World Film Festival, and the
Catalonian International Film Festival.
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide