The Glass House is the latest film from producer Neal H. Moritz, one of the industry's most successful and experienced young producers, whose past hit features such as The Fast and the Furious, Blue Streak, Cruel Intentions and I Know What You Did Last Summer had their fingers on the pulse of young audiences.
"When audiences go into this movie," says Moritz, "I think they're going to be completely entertained: scared, on the edge of their seats, rooting for Ruby and her brother to get out of this situation."
Moritz chose Daniel Sackheim to direct the provocative tale because, as he says, "I'd been watching Dan's television directing work, and whether it was for 'The X Files,' 'Law & Order,' 'NYPD Blue' or 'Harsh Realm,' he delivered fine acting as well as giving the shows great ambiance a sense of tension, thrills, chills and scares."
Sackheim addresses themes in The Glass House, however, that go beyond the genre. "There's an old saying that 'You never appreciate what you have until it's gone.' And in the case of Ruby, she really doesn't value her parents and their old-fashioned nuclear family until it's no longer there."
"You never appreciate what you have when it's right in front of you," agrees Leelee Sobieski, who plays Ruby. "It's a similar situation with Ruby's family, once they're gone. She took them for granted. She was a rebellious teenager. Who cares? Parents are pains. Then all of a sudden they're gone, and it hurts."
Sackheim describes the film as "Gothic updated with a contemporary handle" and "the consummate coming-of-age story set within a psychological thriller." He approached the material with a Hitchcock-inspired attitude. He elaborates: "When making this kind of film, it has not so much to do with what you tell or show the audience, but what you don't show them. It's always important to keep the door just a little ajar so the audience has to peer around the corner in their search for the answers; then they connect with the character and want those answers just as badly as that character," says Sackheim.
"I think a story like this is ageless in terms of the emotional impact it has on an audience and the connection they make to it," he continues. That's one of the attractions of a story like this, that anyone could find themselves in this situation."
The characters and the story came to screenwriter Wesley Strick in a dream—or some kind of nightmare. "I woke up one morning, and it suddenly appeared in my bra in almost fully formed," he remembers. It also had somewhat of an autobiographical genesis, because he and his wife were seriously discussing to whom they would leave their kids if something unfortunate should happen to them.
A lot of teenagers probably romanticize the hip, permissive life in the fast lane that the Glasses offer Ruby and Rhett, says Daniel Sackheim. "The irony is, Ruby goes to the Glass house, where there is a complete lack of attentiveness and discipline, and where the Glasses have a lifestyle of rock stars and movie premieres, and yet she starts craving her old life and that sense of loving control her parents had over her," he says.
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