Harvey Keitel has spent most of the last half century playing rough, heavy-duty roles, mainly in arthouse cinema. His most famous ones are Martin Scorsese movies, but there have been others. One that's worth seeing is Anthony Drazan's "Imaginary Crimes". Keitel plays a man in 1962 Portland who resorts to con jobs and get-rich-quick schemes to provide for his daughters.

I understand that Sheila Ballantyne's novel, on which the movie is based, is semi-autobiographical. I haven't read it, but the movie makes the Pacific Northwest of the '50s and '60s look like a dismal place. Either way, the cast all puts on fine performances. Aside from Keitel, the cast includes Kelly Lynch, Fairuza Balk and Elisabeth Moss (having never heard of her before "The Handmaid's Tale", I didn't know that she was a child star).

Worth seeing.

*One fairly minor spoiler ahead*

There's a very good story in here. I wouldn't doubt that the book is very good. However the screenplay, perhaps as well as the direction here really doesn't do the full story justice. Too much of the story is told from such an overly cynical and somewhat ignorant perspective of the older daughter by narration. Essentially this aspect alone robs the film of its overall effectiveness of being an entirely convincing film. Instead, much of the story the film tries to deliver through the narration, does not reasonably meet the actual story presented. So overall I have to say that while the film is decent, and does have a good story within it, this telling of it overall is not entirely effective enough. It's impossible to fully buy into, unless you care not to think about it much at all I suppose. I also have an issue with the part where child services takes the younger daughter away. If the oldest is 18, which she was, there should never be such a reason to do this. Unless there was some known reason why she could not care for the younger sister, which no reason of this is ever shown or even talked about at all in the film.

It really is too bad, because mostly I really enjoyed the story, and what the director and cast did here. Too bad the narration is not better written here to fit in better with the full story. It could've worked really well, and this would've been a really good little film, mainly if there were only less cynicism and narrowness of perspective in the narration.

5/10.

Sonya Weiler (Fairuza Balk) is starting private school. Her mother Valery Weiler (Kelly Lynch) wanted a better life which never materialized and she died eight years ago. Her father Ray Weiler (Harvey Keitel) is a functioning drunk who sells his 'investment opportunity' to unsuspecting suckers. Greta Weiler (Elisabeth Moss) is her younger sister. Mr. Webster (Vincent D'Onofrio) is her new teacher and she is befriended by classmate Margaret (Amber Benson).

Originally, I gave this a four mostly due to Keitel's infuriating character. One hopes for some light moments to break up the frustration of watching his sleazy schemes. That never comes. It's a frustrating watch as I'm forced to take constant breaks. Sonya needs more screen time and story. She needs a boy interest and more to do with Margaret. Her father needs less screen time. The audience doesn't actually need to know the details about his scheme. We already know everything when he gets Sonya to lie for him. Quite frankly, we don't need all the Sonya narration. I do appreciate this a bit more after watching this again after twenty some odd years. It's still a five but I do see Keitel's great performance.