Every Secret Thing
The movie is told in non-chronological order, with present scenes intercut with flashbacks that slowly reveal the details of the past as the movie progresses.
18 year old Ronnie Fuller and Alice Manning have just been released from Juvenile Hall after serving 7 years for the kidnapping and murder of the bi-racial granddaughter of the county's first black judge. When asked about the crime, Alice continually insists that she is innocent, a victim of Ronnie's machinations, including Ronnie planting her jack in the box at the scene of the murder to frame her. In flashback we see the girls walking home from a pool party, when Ronnie sees the baby unattended in a stroller on a porch. Despite Alice's pleas not to, Ronnie takes the baby and runs off with her, insisting to Alice that they can take better care of the baby and that it is theirs now.
In the present Ronnie is working at a bagel shop in town, while Alice spends most of her days apparently aimlessly walking around town eating junk food, but lying and telling her mother she is searching for employment as per her request. Alice also secretly dreams of finding validation through reality TV stardom, and is shown several times practicing a speech about being a "victim" of the justice system. Alice's mother Helen Manning is a teacher at the elementary school, and it is apparent she and her daughter have a contentious relationship. Helen is ashamed of Alice being overweight, her unsophisticated tastes, and her lack of interest in the kind of things Helen likes. It is also shown in flashback that before the kidnapping Alice and Ronnie were forced to hang out and go to the pool party together by Helen, who showed favoritism toward Ronnie in front of Alice, connecting with Ronnie over art and with her more free-spirited attitude.
Two weeks after Ronnie and Alice return home a couple are shopping in a furniture store with their young curly-haired bi-racial daughter, Brittany Lyttle. While the couple are arguing about couches their daughter goes missing, prompting panic. The two detectives assigned to the case that come to visit the parents include detective Nancy Porter, who worked on the Fuller/Manning case, which still haunts and traumatizes her. Soon the connection between the current case and the previous kidnapping becomes apparent, including the resemblance between Brittany and the previous kidnap victim. Porter and her partner question both Alice and Ronnie. Ronnie is evasive and withdrawn, while Alice tries to subtly suggest Ronnie is responsible. Helen Manning is hostile when questioned.
Porter and her partner then dig into the girls lives during juvenile hall and discover some disturbing truths. Ronnie tried to kill herself several times and frequently got into fights. But more alarmingly, it turns out Alice gave birth to a young bi-racial baby girl in prison. Bringing in both Alice and Helen for questioning, the truth begins to unravel. It turns out at age 15 in Juvenile Hall Alice fell into a sexual relationship with a janitor named Rodrigo who worked there, and who was eventually fired when their affair was uncovered. By the time Alice realized she was pregnant it was too late for her mother to force her to get an abortion, so instead her mother forced her into relinquishing the child for adoption. According to Helen, Alice remained fixated on her child, obsessing over it endlessly. In an attempt to placate Alice, Helen lied to her, saying that she had seen her child living with a family in a nice part of town. She said that the girl had beautiful curly hair, and had a heart shaped birthmark on her back. However, unknown to Helen, upon being released from prison, Alice reconnected with Rodrigo, the janitor who had previously impregnated her. Alice’s supposedly aimless "walking" had actually been her combing the town, searching for her child. Upon seeing Brittany in the furniture store Alice took her and found that she had a heart-shaped birthmark on her back. Believing Brittany to be her child, Alice took her with the help of Rodrigo, who then took the child to stay at his mother’s house. Their plan was to keep Brittany there while Alice framed Ronnie for the crime, after which they would go be with their child. After being shown birth certificates that proved Brittany was not her child, Alice was convinced by Porter to take her to Rodrigo's mother's house, where Porter collects Brittany. This is intercut with Ronnie at home in her bathroom, where still overwhelmed by guilt over the original kidnapping and murder, she commits suicide by slitting her wrists in the bathtub. Porter returns Brittany safely to her grateful and tearful parents.
It is revealed shortly after that Alice made a deal with the district attorney, and that all charges against her have been dropped while Rodrigo is arrested for the kidnapping and statutory rape. Porter and her partner watch in disgust and Alice revels in the media attention, and gives the speech she practiced about being an innocent victim of the justice system for the news cameras. Finally, the details of the ending of the first kidnapping are revealed. It shows Ronnie worrying about the baby, and begging Alice to let her take the baby back. Alice is then shown manipulating and forcing Ronnie into strangling the baby, running away as Ronnie does it. Horrified, Ronnie goes to Helen and confesses what has happened. Helen says that she can make sure that Alice is punished equally along with Ronnie, and we discover that it was Helen who gave Ronnie Alice's jack in the box, telling her to plant it at the scene of the crime. Finally, in the last scene we are again shown the porch on the day of the original kidnapping, except this time Alice is shown standing over the baby carriage instead of Ronnie. This implies that it was actually Alice who instigated the whole kidnapping to begin with, and that it was Ronnie who was the innocent tag-along, not Alice.
murder, flashback