Powerful and important novel and play but the movie director punted.
The subject of nature vs nuture is still a taboo subject. In the play the mother poisoned her daughter and then took her own life but a neighbor intervented and revived the girl who then -by inference- would go on to kill more innocents. The corny Deus Ex Machina thunerbolt from fate, nature or the Gods was a copout. The recent trial of Chism is a case where the mother knew her son was going to eventually kill but did nothing. The book implied that a homocidal gene could skip a generation.
share