The film tells the story of a precocious young girl (Barton) from a gated community who befriends a landscape worker (Rockwell), and examines the societal repercussions of their friendship.

Ten-year-old Devon Stockard, a precocious and lonely young girl, has recently moved into the gated community Camelot Gardens in the Louisville, Kentucky suburbs with her parents, Morton and Clare.

Recently recovered from open heart surgery, Devon is encouraged by her parents to make friends, and is pushed to sell cookies for a charity event for the summer.

While selling the cookies, Devon leaves the gated community against her mother's instructions, and meets Trent Burns, a landscaper living in a trailer in the woods, who works in Camelot Gardens.

"[4] Janet Maslin of The New York Times praised the casting of Barton and Rockwell "it also shows off a poised young actress and a leading man with charisma to burn".

Maslin felt that the "pointedly whimsical film overworks the fairy-tale aspect of this friendship (between Devon and Trent)", she concluded that Duigan "does breathe life into a story that rails against conventional wisdom".

The review continued to note that "Duigan makes imaginative use of his material, heightening Devon's home-life horrors to semi-cartoonishness without stretching credibility, and the fantasy finale is a winner.

"[6] A dissenting review came from Roger Ebert, who wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times that Lawn Dogs is well-made but ultimately directionless and without meaning: "All of [the film's] events happen with the precision and vivid detail of a David Lynch movie, but I do not know why.