Crime + Punishment in Suburbia director Rob Schmidt has made a film about young people and violence. But, as he told Miyuki Ishii, violence is rarely a solution.

Robert Schmidt’s (loose) adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s classic novel Crime and Punishment is another Hollywood attempt (see Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet) to rework classic literature into contemporary film fare. Ahead of its Japan release, Schmidt, 36, himself acknowledges the difficulties of such Hollywood formularizations (to his chagrin, the producers hastily added “Suburbia” to the title on the back of the success of the dystopian American Beauty) but remains committed to a film tackling the timeless themes of guilt and redemption. Substituting Dostoyevsky’s troubled young Raskolnikov for a teenage girl (Roseanne, played by Monica Keena)—who murders an older man who has been molesting her—was a bold, and often fatal, move according to critics. Schmidt, however, remains circumspect about the ambitions of the film.  

The film is loosely based on Dostoyevsky’s novel. How much and in what sense does it have the essence of the original?

When I first read the script, my feeling about it in terms of the emotion was that it was a very loose adaptation. The setups were very different from the novel. The protagonist wasn’t a lonely man, but an extremely popular high school girl. However, I thought it did actually borrow the emotion in terms of the spiritual redemption after the crime. Both protagonists accept the feeling of guilt through a confession and get reborn in a religious sense. So it is still “Crime and Punishment.”

How did you conceive the project?

Mark Waters (director of House of Yes), my roommate at the time, got the script. He didn’t like it, but he thought I would, so he gave it to me.

The original title was Crime + Punishment in High School. Why the change?

This movie was made before American Beauty but released after that. The production company decided to take advantage of the success of American Beauty by changing the title. I was very unhappy about it. American Beauty is told from the point of view of a 45-year-old man. Its solution is just to smoke pot. And my movie doesn’t talk about “suburbia.” “High School” was important to me. Also, the shooting of the film coincided with the Columbine High School massacre and the producers wanted to take attention away from teen violence.

Still, it got an “R” rating in the US.

Unfortunately, people under 17 are not allowed to see the film [without adult accompaniment] in the US. Kids are taught that violence is a solution, but it isn’t. Movies like this must exist for kids to talk about violence and destruction.

Vincent Kartheiser, who plays Roseanne’s obsessive lover in the film, was very impressive. How did you come to choose him for the role?

I knew him since Another Day in Paradise and felt he would be perfect to play the character of Sonia, the Christian prostitute in the original novel. The audience will perceive him as creepy and dangerous at first, but Vincent never saw the character like that, perceiving his actions as somewhat religious. I agreed. Roseanne says in the end, “Do you think I could believe the thing you believe?” To me, the idea was to have a spiritual value, a spiritual solution from suffering within the movie.

Are you a Christian?

No. I was brought up as a Catholic but decided not to believe in God when I was eight.

Then how did you come to make a movie with Christian values?

Because Christianity was the solution in the original novel. I don’t think it matters if someone has a spiritual life through Christ or Buddha or whatever. Having something that takes you away from materialism is important, however. Muslims and Buddhists alike could understand the value of the film. Similarly, when I was addicted to speed, I stopped not by praying to Christ, but God in general.

How did you get Frank Black and Joey Santiago, additional score composers and performers?

I’m a big fan of the Pixies. I used to listen to their albums over and over, ten hours at a time when they came out. They made amazing music. I came up with the idea of using “Monkey Gone to Heaven,” as the song is about an act of God. So I approached them and eventually they joined the project. I was very excited with working with them.

A major part the film was never reconciled. Will Roseanne and her mother reunite?

I have a bunch of friends who haven’t talked to their parents for several years. Their relationships are so complicated, so they think they’d rather not talk to each other. So I thought it was better to have Roseanne's mother just walk away from her. It’s not a good thing, though. I think it’s out of pain. But Roseanne starts a new life with Vincent, who has a good relationship with her mother. She’ll have responsibility for herself and through that will hopefully rebuild a new relationship with her mother.