Gone Baby Gone - Ben Affleck
This is part of my unedited thoughts series.
The way the story unfolds in this film is bizarre, causing the pacing to feel completely off. The story follows the disappearance of a little girl and the police and private investigators’ search for her. But this is resolved very early on when she appears to have died and is declared dead. Months pass and other cases are explored.
Then towards the end, she comes back into focus and the whole story returns to the disappearance. It is so jarring for us that it is hard to return to the story we felt was finished.
The whole basis of the narrative is that neglected children are better off kidnapped and placed with people who are better placed to care for them.
This is such a ridiculous premise. We are supposed to be able to be on both sides of this argument to see the actions that the characters take on both sides as reasonable and justified. I mean come on.
As soon as this argument is made the whole movie falls apart. We are meant to believe that numerous police officers feel this way as well as the leads splitting with one on one side and one on the other. It makes the leads cause noble and the rest look like idiots.
The opening is well done with the introduction of the lead and his role as a private detective being shown and not told.
The mum is completely unbelievable when she won’t tell the cops the truth about the night of the disappearance. This is an attempt to set up how scared she is about the repercussions of her telling the truth. But you need to remember this is all balanced against the life of her child – there is nothing that should tip those scales.
The plot pieces are tight and well-written. Everything comes back together nicely and everything we see is important.
The reveal of the lies outside the hospital to the lead figuring it all out is just way too complicated. We shouldn’t need to have it explained to us in graphic detail about what exactly happened to the girl.
