movie review

Gone Baby Gone

starring Casey Affleck, Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman

This film, Ben Affleck's writing and directing debut, is a very close adaptation of Dennis Lehane's book of the same title. (Lehane also wrote the book Mystic River, which Clint Eastwood turned into a masterful film.) i read the book in advance, looking forward to the movie, so that comparison informs much of my opinion. (and means this will be extra long)

First, a spoiler-free synopsis: Patrick (Casey Affleck) and his girlfriend Angie (Michelle Monaghan) are private investigators in Dorchester, a salty suburb of Boston. They grew up there, know the neighborhood and its characters. When 4yr old Amanda disappears from her bed in the middle of the night, her aunt convinces Patrick & Angie to use their 'local angle' to aid in the police's search. Amanda's mom, Helene (Amy Ryan), is not the pitiable, easy-to-swallow soccer-mom victim that the media usually casts in these cases. She's crass, she has substance abuse problems, she'd left Amanda alone in the house when the kidnapping happened...she doesn't make it easy on anyone. Capt. Jack Doyle (Freeman) is himself the parent of a child who went missing and has made his career crusading against such crimes. He's irritated by Patrick & Angie's involvement and sticks them with Detectives Bressant (Harris) and Poole. Patrick & Angie quickly use their personal connections to make inroads in the case, but it gets more murky and frustrating the further in they get.

What's really striking about this film is the authenticity of the peripheral characters, extras, setting, etc. Both Afflecks and Lehane grew up in Boston, so there isn't a false ring anywhere. Aside from the aforementioned actors, everyone else in this film seems pulled right out of the fabric of Dorchester and put in front of the camera doing exactly what they would've been doing had a film crew not rolled into town. Really, Dorchester itself is as much a character as Patrick or Helene. The standout performances come from Casey Affleck, Amy Ryan and Ed Harris. Affleck's Patrick is a shifting mix of the hard shell from a lifetime spent in Dorchester and from working as a PI, and the conflicted innocence of being young and always just at arm's length from the Worst Of It. Obviously the accent and speech patterns are natural to him, but you don't find yourself thinking 'well, it's really nice that this is the actor's native 'tongue'', you just see Patrick in his element. Unfortunately, Michelle Monaghan's Angie wasn't given much to do besides stand behind Patrck and look very sad. i've liked Monaghan in other movies (she was great in North Country) and it's not that she's not great here, but she just wasn't written the way Lehane wrote her in his novel. i got the impression they just didn't have time for it. Amy Ryan's Helene is deservedly nominated for a supporting actress nomination. She's unsavory, hard, selfish and may look alot like people at your hometown WalMart or who you went to high school with. But she's also in over her head and coming to grips with what kind of mother she's been to Amanda. It's a really complete performance; i don't know if she's a 'character actor' or not, but it was that level of fullness. While Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman are always reliable, Freeman's role is smaller and doesn't require as much. Harris' Det. Remy Bressant is compelling, and i felt like it was his best work in a while. i don't know if others will agree, but i think he really embodied the character Lehane crafted so well in his book.

This is not a feel-good movie. Lehane drew upon his experience working with abused children to give a glimpse into their world that is a punch in your gut and hurts all the more because you know it's just a drop in a very deep, very wide bucket. The screenwriters made only minor changes to the cast and story, and did the best they could, but it felt a little rushed, which is almost always the case when you compare novel to film. The moral question posed at the end was more dividing in the book version, but i think the film still does a good job of posing it. As the tagline says: "Everyone wants the truth...until they find it." (i'd really love to discuss the end, but i don't want to spoil it. If you see it, let's discuss.) Even though it's not fair to compare first-timer Ben Affleck with seasoned craftsman Clint Eastwood, i'm going to say Mystic River was a better adaptation, but lacked the city-as-character quality in the way that Affleck accomplished.

All in all, an arresting, well-acted film that serves as both a love note and a garish reality check.