Mary Kay Letourneau: All American Girl (2000)

A teacher is arrested and jailed for raping her 13-year-old student, and twice gives birth to his child.

Director:

Lloyd Kramer

Writer:

Julie Hébert (as Julie Hebert)

Stars:

Penelope Ann Miller, Omar Anguiano, Mercedes Ruehl

Cast

Credited cast:
Penelope Ann Miller	...	Mary Kay Letourneau
Omar Anguiano	...	Vili Fualaau
Mercedes Ruehl	...	Jane Newhall
Rena Owen	...	Soona Fualaau
Greg Spottiswood	...	Steve Letourneau
Christopher Bondy	...	John Schmitz (as Chris Bondy)
Janet-Laine Green	...	Mrs. Schmitz
Gary Hudson	...	Charles Dunphy
Robert Clark	...	Steven, Jr.
Lori Hallier	...	Jan Griffin
Julie Khaner	...	Det. Coughlin
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Philip Akin	...	Det. Albany
Chloe Brown	...	Girl Student
Nadia Capone	...	Susan Trenton
Michael Caruana	...	Marina Cop #1

Storyline

Mary Kay Letourneau is a teacher, who is married and has children. She then has an affair with one of her students who is underaged. When she gets pregnant, she is charged with statutory rape. After pleading with the judge to give her a chance, she was instructed not to see the boy again, but when she not only disregards the instructions, she gets pregnant again. She is sent to prison.

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Plot Keywords:

judge | statutory rape | teacher student relationship | women's prison | trial | 

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Taglines:

She was the teacher. He was her student. What they learned wasn't part of the curriculum.

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Genres:

Crime | Drama

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Certificate:

TV-14

Details

Country:

USA Canada

Language:

English

Release Date:

18 January 2000 (USA)

Also Known As:

Mary Kay Letourneau: All American Girl

Filming Locations:

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Company Credits

Production Co:

Grosso-Jacobson Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

120 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

Soona Fualaau the mother of Vili Fualaau requested that the producers cast New Zealand actress 'Rena Owens' to play her, after seeing her performance in L'âme des guerriers (1994).

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Quotes

Mary Kay Letourneau: No Science project?
[Vili doesn't look up]
Mary Kay Letourneau: Where are you Vili?
Vili Fualaau: The dark zone.
Mary Kay Letourneau: Remember in second grade, how we used to get you out of that dark place?

User Reviews

So the Marriage has NOW actually lasted 10 years in real life after her release from prison.

I was drawn to this by a news report of interviews between the actual couple involved.

The story seemed amazing - but true and fairly well represented in this drama.

I think it proves the old adage 'hard cases make bad laws'.

I also think that prison is rarely the best response to law breaking - although in this case it was probably necessary because of the the subsequent offending - though 7 weeks rather than 7 years might have been sufficient - as one who has worked with imprisoned people I know that usually longer detention achieves very little apart from keeping the convict out of circulation. About the only two justifications for continued imprisonment are that a person presents an immediate danger to others or their criminality is so prolific and out of control that incarceration is required.

However, she was diagnosed as mentally ill, which suggests to me the detention should have been in a hospital not a prison.

Another reviewer with some knowledge of Samoan customs has commented that Samoans have a different attitude to sexual relationships between younger males and older women to most Western cultures.. However, we are not told to what extent Vili was influenced by his Samoan ancestry and I am not sure whether the influence is consequential on conditioning and socialisation rather than psychological - so these remarks maybe irrelevant. It is many years since I studied - at a fairly basic level - sociology and anthropology but do recall Margaret Mead's works "Coming of Age in Samoa" (1928)and "Growing Up In New Guinea" (1930) were influential on both disciplines, but I cannot now recall the details.

The saddest aspect of all this is that the families involved have lived in the glare of publicity for many years now, which in itself can be a disabling factor.

Nonetheless, it is well worth viewing, especially if viewers can put their prejudices aside, whilst watching and view the Movie as a way of gaining greater insight into the complexity of human behaviours and relationships.