Sixteen-year-old Ruby Baker and her eleven-year-old brother Rhett lose their parents, Dave and Grace, in a car accident. Their parents' will is not a recent one but, in accordance with its terms, the children are placed under the guardianship of family neighbors from some years back, the childless couple Erin Glass and Terry Glass, who live in a large glass house in Malibu. There are early indications that all is not well. The children have to share a room; they are no longer educated privately; Rhett is allowed to play with games consoles at all times; Ruby is made uneasy by Terry's sexual hints when they are alone. Ruby comes across unlabeled pharmaceuticals and sees Erin injecting herself, though the couple claims this is for diabetes. Ruby tries unsuccessfully to get the children's estate and trust fund lawyer Alvin Begleiter to accept her concerns and a visiting social worker is taken in by the couple's assurances. Ruby discovers a postcard from the children's maternal Uncle Jack in the trash, along with a letter from a private school indicating the Glasses unregistered the children and pocketed the $30,000+ tuition money. Ruby also finds signs that Terry is in debt to loan sharks, and she gradually realizes her new foster parents are after the siblings' $4 million trust fund. Ruby becomes suspicious of her parents' death and discovers evidence of the Glasses' involvement from the online news which states that Ruby's parents had been driving a BMW, which was actually one of Terry's cars, instead of their Saab. Moreover, Ruby is expelled from school because her essay, which Terry finished for her seemingly to rekindle their relationship, is found to be plagiarised; it is later revealed that this is Terry's plan to send Ruby to a boarding school far away. After being pushed by the loan sharks to pay off his debt, Terry decides to get money from the financial authority, claiming that it is to be used for the children's benefit. His request is denied and he is shown a copy of the un-registration letter from the school, previously faxed to the authority most likely by Ruby, which raises the question of why he needs more money when he has already gotten the tuition money back in his pocket. Later the same night, Ruby steals Terry's car keys, wakes Rhett and drives off in his Jaguar, attempting to escape. She is stopped by the police who demand to see her driver's license. The kids are recaptured in the car on the road by Terry and Erin who talk the police into letting them go. Back home, Ruby attempts to run away again but Terry knocks her down and Erin drugs her. Terry then tells Erin they must get rid of Ruby. Overcome by guilt and having been permanently stripped from her medical license after her employer Dr. Weiss uncovered her drug abuse, Erin commits suicide by overdose. Terry locks the kids in the basement and sabotages his car, expecting the kids to make another escape attempt and consequently die in it. The loan sharks appear at Terry's house, kill Mr. Begleiter, repossess Terry's Jaguar and Ferrari, and insist on taking a ride. Terry begs them to take the Volvo instead of the Jaguar. Having heard everything, Ruby rushes to stab the tires of the Volvo with a knife, causing the loan sharks to put Terry in the Jaguar and drive away in it. The car then goes over a ledge and crashes, seemingly killing the loan sharks and Terry. Meanwhile, the children are picked up by a friendly cop on the road. The policeman passes the scene of an accident with Terry's Ferrari and the kids see a body being covered up. They continue on to the kids' house, but he stops when he sees evidence of another car having broken through the barrier. He tells the children to stay in the car while he investigates. He comes across the car and radios that there is one fatality. Terry comes up knocks him out. A severely injured Terry climbs to the road and staggers towards Ruby and Rhett, hiding a gun. Ruby crawls into the front seat, and after backing the car up and telling Rhett to put his seatbelt on, speeds into Terry and kills him. The kids are last seen placing flowers at the grave of their parents with their Uncle Jack who hugs them, saying that things will get easier and Ruby responds that they already have. They leave together to go home to Chicago.
The film was released on VHS and DVD on January 2, 2002. A Blu-ray version of the film has yet to be released. The original cut of the film was reported to be 180 minutes long, with 74 minutes worth of footage missing from the theatrical cut. Kip Pardue played Leelee Sobieski's love interest in the original cut though all of his scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. Of all the deleted footage, only two scenes managed to survive. They are included on the DVD as deleted scenes :
After Ruby faints when she finds the cops at her house, she wakes up the next morning believing her parents' accident was only a nightmare. When she heads downstairs, the neighbors are there to tell her it wasn't. Ruby sits at the table and cries as the camera slowly pans away from her.
Ruby and Rhett are seen at their parents' funeral burying their ashes at the cemetery.
Because of the film's critical and financial failure, the studio had little interest in keeping unused footage and the missing 74 minutes worth of footage has since been considered lost.
Release
Box office
The film opened at number two in its opening weekend at the US box office, behind Hardball, in which Diane Lane also stars. The Glass House grossed $18,150,259 domestically and $5,469,350 overseas, grossing a total of $23,619,609. The film's production budget was $30 million, resulting in a box-office bomb.
Critical reception
, a review aggregator, reports that the film received positive reviews by 21% of the 86 surveyed critics. The average rating was 4.23/10, and the consensus is: "Due to obvious plot twists and foreshadowing, The Glass House fails to thrill. By the end, it degenerates into ludicrousness." Roger Ebert rated the film 2 out of 4 stars and criticized the film's script. Writing in The New York Times, A. O. Scott called it unintentionally funny. Robert Koehler of Variety also called the film unintentionally funny and questioned why so many talented actors signed on to a poor script. Edward Guthmann, of the San Francisco Chronicle, criticized the film's violence and the timing of the release, which coincided with the September 11 attacks. In a more positive review, USA Todays Claudia Puig rated the film two out of four stars but called it "eerily engrossing."
Sequel
A direct-to-video sequel, , was released in 2006. The film did not feature any of the original characters and did not take place in the same house.
