Too Young to Die 1990

Amanda Sue Bradley Juliette Lewis is a 15-year-old girl who has long felt let down by the adults around her, including her mother Wanda Bradley Sledge Laurie O’Brien and her stepfather Harvey Sledge Dean Abston. After she tells her mother about the sexual abuse her stepfather has inflicted on her, the two parents abandon her, leaving her to navigate a harsh world on her own. After an unsuccessful marriage, she leaves town and falls prey to a hustler, Billy Canton Brad Pitt. He introduces Amanda to drugs and strip clubs, abuses her, and takes a share of her earnings, pulling her deeper into exploitation.

A chance encounter with a soldier, Mike Medwicki Michael O’Keefe, offers Amanda a place to stay while she tries to get back on her feet. Despite her youth, a romantic relationship develops between them. When his commanding officer learns of the affair, Mike ends the relationship, leaving Amanda back on the streets to fend for herself. Not long after, Billy tracks her down and insists she stay with him again.

After a night of heavy drug use, Billy convinces Amanda to participate in a plan of revenge against Mike. The two break into Mike’s house and pull Mike and his girlfriend, Jean Glessner Emily Longstreth, out of town to their oilfields. Using Billy’s knife, Amanda stabs Mike. The couple’s actions set off a sequence that leads to Amanda’s arrest and trial.

Amanda is tried as an adult, despite her young age. The prosecuting lawyer is relentless, portraying her as a symbol of a troubled new generation that deserves a harsh warning. Amanda’s lawyer, Michael Tucker, argues that society bears part of the blame for the circumstances that brought her to this moment, not only her own choices. Nevertheless, the jury convicts her of murder, and she is sentenced to death by lethal injection. The film closes with her anguished face as she comes to terms with the sentence.