Too bad for Peter (who writes poetry to Agnes)

I disagree on that, she wasn't way to mature for all of them.

She surely had a lot more experiences than them, and types of experiences that one should not have at 13/14, but that did not make her more mature.

Sure, she tried to be a sort of a substitute mother to her other two sisters, and pretty much took care of the household, had several part time jobs, played on her school b-ball team and got fairly good grades.

But, she was still just a teenage girl, with immaturities intermixed with more mature attitudes.

True, all we see is a single day in their life (with the tips of the scale leaning on Agnes' day) so we can't really say how it went on the other days, weeks, months. What I can guess though, is that Sarah (the mother) wasn't always the used up junkie prostitute which we see on this day.

Sarah most likely did start out loving her three daughters and caring for them, wanting what any normal parent wants. She escaped from her abusive husband (and father of the girls) nd tried to make a better life for them all. Unfortunately things didn't work out the way she might have hoped.

The mom probably never had had a normal job or career, it just wasn't that expected at that time, she was expected to be a housewife and a mother, but the situation with her husband made that mostly impossible.

So she took the girls to Iowa and probably started off looking for a legit job, but soon she either turned to prostitution as it provided her with fast money, or maybe she first encountered Duval (the Pimp) and he sweet talked to her, made her feel loved, and sweet kissed her, over time she got more and more involved with him, he started pimping her out to friends, providing enough money for her to pull through with the girls, but all the weight and stress of her situation was to much for her, so she took to alcohol and drugs to numb her senses, and it went on to the point we se her in the film - to far gone to care about anything anymore, besides her next dose and her 'man'.

Agnes was the oldest daughter, she's the one who would have seen most of these changes and have a grasp on before and after. She saw what Duval did to her mother.

Yet still, he is able to sweet talk her around his finger, impress her, make her believe that he actually cares for her, she loves his sweet kisses, his experience, and doesn't connect that that's how it started with her mom. Or, even if she does connect that, she's sure that he "really loves her" and wouldn't be to her the way he is to her mother. She knows that he's a grown man who has sexual relations with other women. Does Agnes honestly believe that some kisses with her is all that he's going to be satisfied with? She knows he's a pimp and a hustler, still because she is not as mature as she herself wants to have us believe that she is, she gets involved with him.

At times I had the feeling that the other two sisters displayed more maturity than Agnes.

Take Bee (the middle sister), she knows that her home situation is not bearable. She knows to avoid the people who hang around that house, including her own birth mother. She also has the convintion and the strength to reach out and look for help, as with when she mentions that she talked with her School Counselor. Keeping in mind that CPS did not intervene much in those days, she has reasonable hope that she'll get taken out of there. Sure the system had pretty much failed the three sisters up to this point. After all, the scene with the Police Cruiser tells us one thing, the Police knew what was going on in that house and did nothing. But the question comes to mind, why did Agnes never reach out to someone like the Counselor?

Because in Agnes' immaturity, she is convinced that she is strong enough, smart enough and independent enough to carry all that weight and succeed. Teens more often than not tend to overestimate their capabilities.

The sadness is, that just as all the responsibility had weighed down on the mother, it is starting to weigh down on Agnes as well. This can be seen in the evening at the house party.

Bee had the good sense to not only lock her door with the regular lock, she also had 3 extra locks and put a dresser in front of the door, practically barricading herself in. Now if one of those ass-wipes really wanted to enter the room, he could've forced entry, but Bee would've had enough time to get the hell out through the window.

Yet what does Agnes do?

Agnes starts out by smoking a joint and then removes the dresser, unlocking the door, and going out into that lion's den.

Twice during the film she was warned of what the future might hold for her.

First in a really twisted way, her own mother tells her to stop acting like she's so much better than her, because she's not. She practically tells her daughter to look at her and that this is what lies in her future. She tells her that she's old enough to have sex and that she should 'earn her keep'.
Strangely in probably 9 out of 10 cases, the mom is right with that assessment. A girl growing up in that environment will most likely stay there and not make it out. Only 1 in a 1'000'000 makes it to become Lori Petty (luckily for Agnes that that's her).

The second person to try and warn her, is that one dude, who tells her to get out and play ball.

She heeds neither warning, after all she's convinced that Duval loves her. Yet seeing him fool around with Sarah, she turns to the bottle of alcohol. So now besides the joint from earlier she also has the alc. Even after knowing what drugs and alcohol did to her mom, seeing the result day after day, she turns to those.

Then Duval's sweet kisses turn into bitter and brutal rape.

Is it her fault that it happened? Hell no. The probability of it happening were sky high to begin with, the question was only on the when and where. If not that evening, she would've been raped on another day. Or perhaps she would've come to a point where she would have willing sex with Duval at first, but since he thinks about his money, he'd be whoring her out soon after.


Even Cammie, the youngest daughter who might seem the most childish at times, appears to me more mature at times than Agnes.

Sure Cammie says things like:
"I wish you could be my daddy" or
"How can you have a baby with someone you don't love"

But, she knew what the realities were. The saddest moment was when she said in the bar: "I wish someone would come for me, but no one will ever come for me" - at that point one understands that she, the youngest knows in what a f'cked up life she's living.