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Alicia Witt has gotten a lot of press lately, including a Datebook cover story a couple of weeks ago, for her continuing role on "Cybill" and her part in "Mr. Holland's Opus." But the Worcester native's best role to date has been in the independent film "Fun," which opens tomorrow at the Coolidge Corner theater in Brookline.
I had the chance to watch a video of "Fun" recently and was impressed by both Witt and co-star Renee Humphrey as a couple of directionless teen-agers who murder an old woman. The two are imprisoned in a detention center, and spend much of the film explaining their actions to a magazine writer (William R. Moses) and a burned-out social worker (Leslie Hope). Neither of the girls' inquisitors can buy their story that the cold-blooded killing was for fun.
"Fun" was made in 1994, and Witt's face still has a youthful puffiness she's since shed. Her 14-year-old character, Bonnie, exudes a childlike charisma that lures the emotionally wounded Hillary, 15, into her sphere. Bonnie is also a pathological liar who's constructed an elaborate history that includes promiscuous sex and incest.
Most of the film veers between past and present,...