Synopsis

When Mona Dearly dies after driving her Yugo into the Hudson River, Verplanck police chief Wyatt Rash investigates what first appears to be an accident. Mona was so cruel and disliked that nearly everyone in town had a motive to kill her. As Rash questions the residents, conflicting stories reveal a bizarre web of grudges, secrets, affairs, and long-simmering resentment.

Factoids & Trivia

• Verplanck, New York, was chosen as the film's setting because the real town had been selected as a test market for the Yugo hatchback in 1985. The movie was not filmed there, and some residents objected to the town's unflattering portrayal.

• The film's running gag involving Yugos draws on the car's real reputation as an inexpensive, poorly regarded vehicle. In the story, the entire community drives them because Verplanck was supposedly used as a Yugo test market.

• Writer Peter Steinfeld deliberately named the police chief Wyatt Rash. Said quickly, the name sounds like "white trash," matching the film's satirical view of its small-town setting.

• The dog-related scenes were monitored by the American Humane Society. For the lawnmower sequence, three dogs were conditioned to the sound of the motor, and the apparent accident was created through staging and editing rather than showing an animal being harmed.

• The screenplay was Peter Steinfeld's first produced feature. He later wrote films including Analyze That, Be Cool, and 21.

• Drowning Mona was released by Destination Films in March 2000 as a dark crime comedy with a PG-13 rating.