Gone Baby Gone

[Penelope]

Really, the combination of Assassination of Jesse James and Gone Baby Gone should make Casey Affleck the front-runner for Best Actor; that he's not, and that he's considered only a "possibility" for mis-placement in the Supporting category is an unconscionable mystery to me.

[flipp525]

I'm truly at a loss as to why Gone Baby Gone hasn't being shortlisted for Best Picture. It's the one of the best films I've seen this year. I also think Amy Ryan should win Best Supporting Actress. As Damien mentioned below, she's just frighteningly good in this role.

[Damien]

Just saw it and it’s the best film I’ve seen so far this year. I can’t think of another film that is so mournful, or another mood piece which so perfectly and beautifully sustains its mood throughout.

Ben Affleck memorably has compassion and empathy for his characters, while not shrinking away from the appalling aspects of their personalities and the grimness of dead-end lives And what a joy to see a movie with moral ambiguities, one that asks hard questions and presents no easy answers. The ethical struggles through which the characters are going are so deeply expressed as to be completely palpable, and this is accomplished without an ounce of sentimentality.


Affleck’s non-judgmental stance towards most of the characters adds to the depth and richness of the picture. The film’s ambience is also superb – the production design, costumes, extras all convey such a strong sense of a very partiiicular place.


And what acting! If we didn’t know Amy Ryan was an acclaimed stage actress, we’d assumed she was someone Affleck came upon at a bar in Dorchester. She’s uncannily good. And a shout out to Amy Madigan, who is just as impressive (and in some ways even more terrifying than Ryan). As for Casey – wow! Another superb and unforgettably self-effacing performance. One of the most exciting things filmwise this year has been his emergence as a major, major acting talent. I love what Mahnola Dargis wrote in the NY Times: “I’m not sure exactly when Casey Affleck became such a good actor.”

A truly haunting film.

[Hustler]

Amy Ryan is astonishing. She seemed to have escaped from a movie of the 70´s.

[Penelope]

Nice to see he may have something to fall back on once his acting career dries up.

Once? He hasn't given a good performance since Jenny From the Block.

I thought he was terrific in Hollywoodland.

[Steph2]

Nice to see he may have something to fall back on once his acting career dries up.

Once? He hasn't given a good performance since Jenny From the Block.

I liked this film more than I thought I would, even if the ending is a bit problematic. Who knew Ben had this in him? Amy Ryan gives the kind of performance supporting Oscars are intended for. I hope she at least gets nominated.

[Mister Tee]

I've been holding off writing about Gone Baby Gone because I can't find my copy of the novel and I wanted to check my recollection that at least one major detail had been changed changed. (SPOILER AHEAD) I had in my head that that what the cops were ultimately shown to have done was not a one-off prompted by Amy Ryan's behavior, but a sort of vigilante squad service they'd created: seeing to it that several abused and ignored children were transferred to homes where they'd get proper care. Am I imagining this in my percocet-ed haze? It certainly would alter the meaning of the ending,…making it less a self-serving strategy for the Morgan Freeman character than a semi-altruistic crusade.

Be that as it may…I liked Gone Baby Gone on the page far more than Mystic River on the page. The latter seemed a straining-to-be-a-serious novel by a writer who wasn't yet at the stage of writing such a book; the former seemed a nearly perfectly realized, pure genre piece that achieved great reverb by raising serious moral questions. On screen, the equation is somewhat reversed: Eastwood and his actors' stone conviction (until the wobbly climax) somehow obviated my narrative objections to Mystic and made it feel like a genuine tragedy. Affleck's work is more spotty, which diminished somewhat the impact I'd felt from the novel.

But this is not remotely to dismiss Gone Baby Gone (after all, I thought Mystic River '03's best film); there's an awful lot of good work on display here. For starters, Affleck, maybe even more than Eastwood, manages to put us utterly inside an insular community (Eastwood examined his terrain fully, but felt a bit like an outsider doing it; Affleck seems to live there). The first 15 minutes or so of this film were, I thought, about perfect. The people, both professionals and amateurs (starting with that woman telling the TV station how things are under control because they'd got a prayer vigil organized) were absolutely authentic: the way they talked and held themselves, the way they communicated with outsiders or authority -- every bit of it seemed absolutely right. You got a deep sense of the ambivalence Affleck/Lehane have for this place of their birth -- proud to be at one with genuine, close-to-the-earth folk…but then, in a moment like that bar confrontation, horrified at feeling connected to some of them, who barely rise above primitive. Amy Ryan's character may be the ultimate expression of this ambivalence: she's clearly, at every moment, a horror -- but she's also home-folk (and you wonder how much that plays into Patrick's final decision).

I did think the film wavered a bit after the great opening -- in fact, right in that bar-room scene, where the action started off believable, but jumped a little far into hysteria. A few subsequent scenes were equally off: Bubba was never my favorite character in the books, and I found his scenes over the top (as well as partially inaudible); the raid on the pedophile's house also felt pitched too high. Overall, I'd say Affleck shows little flair for action staging: the quarry meet is pretty disastrous -- I had virtually no visual idea of what was going on, despite having read the book, and the repeated flashbacks to which Sonic refers didn't help clear it up. There are also the narrative problems to which many have referred, which made the last half hour the least effective part of the film. (Did anyone else sense the scenes turning much more talky at this point as well?)

What is consistently strong throughout, though, is Affleck drawing fine work from pretty much all the actors. Many have noted brother Casey -- from this evidence, the family's most talented thespian -- and Harris (his best, most varied work in a long while); I'd also make mention of Freeman; even Amy Madigan is her smallish role.

But, for me, Ryan is the standout. Yes, it's a great role -- but I don't see why that should be a disqualifier. Actors LONG for great roles; they don't just want to impress the cognoscenti in minor parts. Besides, it'd be one thing if Ryan just coasted on a well-written character, bringing nothing special to the execution. But I'd say she brings an awful lot. She's not just a bad mother; she's a nearly oblivious, bordering-on-psychopath slave to her own desires. And she's found a way to exist in utter denial about this: by focusing sharply on the shortcomings of others. Watch how she lashes out at Madigan, at Monahan (but not Patrick -- she flirts with him). She's in a way like Hannibal Lecter: she blocks out her own awfulness by spotlighting the flaws/vulnerabilities of anyone so unfortunate as to challenge her. Much of this seems to me not what was on the page, but what Ryan found in the character and brought to life. I've seen several performances so far this year that I imagine will be nominated for Oscars. But this, along with Christie's, is the one I find most clearly deserving. Given the paucity of supporting actress candidates -- and the way I'm Not There promises to divide audiences -- I wouldn't be surprised if she were to win.

[The Original BJ]

I enjoyed Gone Baby Gone quite a bit. Of course, Ben Affleck lacks the gravitas of Eastwood (neither the narrative impact nor the performances hit the highs of Mystic River), but I was shocked by the sheer sturdiness of his direction: this is a confident, mature debut, a thoughtful and powerful piece of work.

Let me qualify my praise by agreeing with those who think the narrative gets a little out of hand by film's end: some of the twists aren't entirely believable. That said, I do have to give credit to a film that features at least three narrative shifts that are genuinely surprising, when the season's other major thrillers -- Michael Clayton, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead -- barely offered up one. That the film treads in surprisingly murky moral water is equally impressive, though I wouldn't want to reveal any more until others have seen the film.

After Assassination of Jesse James and now this, I have to admit I am totally smitten with Casey Affleck. If he doesn't get nominated for SOMETHING this year (and by something I don't mean Best Supporting Actor, or Best Actress, or whatever other category people want to ludicrously shove him in), it will be a crime. Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman are both dependably fine.

But the star of the show is, as virtually everyone has pointed out, Amy Ryan. I'll disagree with Sonic that the part is jerryrigged for awards. Sure, it's a very showy role, but, if anything, the fact that her character is so unlikable should conceivably work against her chances. And that's the main reason why I loved her performance -- here is a woman who loves her daughter, no doubt, and is deeply traumatized by her kidnapping...and yet Ryan never shies away from making clear that this woman is, to put it frankly, a very bad mother. She successfully engenders both audience sympathy and contempt, and, as such, defines the moral crux of the entire story. Plus, one of the things I do love about award season (as much as we whine every year, there are SOME good things!) is that Oscar buzz can bring great attention to fine work by unsung performers. I had no idea Ryan appeared in War of the Worlds, Capote, and You Can Count on Me (had to IMDb her!)...but Gone Baby Gone could certainly be the break-out for what could be a mighty fine character actress. Why punish her for finally snagging a knock-out role?

[flipp525]

From imdb.com:

Affleck Impressed by Amy Ryan

Director Ben Affleck was so impressed by actress Amy Ryan, he hired her on the spot following her audition for Gone Baby Gone. And Affleck was so excited at the emergence of the new talent, he begged her not to turn down the role. He says, "I think Amy is brilliant and I'm really glad to see that people will get to see more of her. And I just lucked out that she walked into the room. She read one scene in the audition and I like stopped and said, 'You're hired. Please do the movie.'" Ryan's performance in the film as a drug addicted mother has already been tipped for an Academy Award nomination.

[flipp525]

Yeah, but it's from the novel.

And it's still a problem. One I couldn't solve, no doubt, but still an act of narrative hari-kiri until it picks up.

The plot drivers of the second half of the film had all been set up in the first half of the film: the coked-out ugly couple with the pedophile living with them; Morgan Freeman's past with missing, exploited and murdered children; Ed Harris' bending of the law. The writer fakes the audience out by throwing out seemingly red herrings and hasty resolutions, only to expose and then tie everything together in the end. It wasn't completely believable, I'll give you that Sabin, but it made a sort of sense within the context of the character motivations he'd already gave us a glimpse into.

Amy Ryan's disappearance in the middle of the movie is also consistent with the film's narrative. Her little girl is "buried" and there's no reason for her to be around again until the end when everything changes. Her behavior in the last scene with Casey Affleck effectively dictates that little girl's future.



Edited By flipp525 on 1194272872

[Sabin]

Yeah, but it's from the novel.

And it's still a problem. One I couldn't solve, no doubt, but still an act of narrative hari-kiri until it picks up.

The WHOOSH-iness was annoying. The onus placed on Casey Affleck's (which admittedly was staring two decisions in the face and choosing one, though the heavens may fall) was a wise decision that paid off where a lesser film may have fallen.

[Sonic Youth]

Had we really any reason to believe that Ben Affleck wasn't a good storyteller? He's such an affable putz! 'Gone Baby Gone' is indicative of a decent career in the making. The big problem is that the narrative takes a swan dive at the hour mark, as it crawls towards its conclusion which is somewhat unexpected, interesting, but ultimately a stretch.

Yeah, but it's from the novel.

The problem I had with the climax was that it suddenly switched gears from being an atmospheric, character-driven and actorly film to a narrative-driven film, and Affleck's strengths as a filmmaker are in the former category, and not so much in the latter. He resorts to quick, WHOOSH-y flashbacks in order to make sure we get the story twist, which is beneath the film. "Did you catch it?! Did you catch it?!"

Fortunately, he ended the movie with (Casey) Affleck's consequences of having taken on the case, which is all we really care about.

[Sabin]

Had we really any reason to believe that Ben Affleck wasn't a good storyteller? He's such an affable putz! 'Gone Baby Gone' is indicative of a decent career in the making. The big problem is that the narrative takes a swan dive at the hour mark, as it crawls towards its conclusion which is somewhat unexpected, interesting, but ultimately a stretch. The casting in this film is completely note-perfect and Sonic is correct that the art direction is fantastic. I enjoyed 'Gone Baby Gone' for the feel and the spectacle of the thing even though it is not always compelling filmmaking.

Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan (or as I like to call her, NEW MAGGIE) are so silly as jr. detectives but the script wisely turns that to its advantage, positing that of course! people like these are what is needed to solve a mystery. Ms. Monaghan is sadly under-used and Casey Affleck again establishes himself as one of the great character actors of our time, a compelling anti-hero leading man. I'm not sure if Amy Ryan will be nominated as her screen time is divided by over an hour but she's a hoot. I laughed almost every second she was on-screen. Ed Harris is fantastic though. His drunken soliloquy is on the page good stuff, but in execution the man demonstrates as he hasn't in quite some time that he can tear his opponent (and the audience) a new asshole if prompted. His blue eyes are searing and he looks oddly dignified with gray hair and goatee. He does a fantastic job, as really the entire cast does. Titus Welliver is also quite good as Lionel and can wear a moustache like few else.

Good flick, not great.

[Sonic Youth]

I preferred "We Own the Night", but Affleck acquits himself rather nicely, so long as you can handle unpleasant, unrelenting skeeziness filled with characters without a sliver of dignity. He does very well on a scene-by-scene basis, but he does not have the overall storytelling confidence of Clint Eastwood or James Gray... at least not yet. Nice to see he may have something to fall back on once his acting career dries up.

Amy Ryan being singled out seems a little unfair, since it's a jerryrigged part practically devised in order to collect critic's awards and nominations. My choice for M.V.P. is Ed Harris, nearly unrecognizable here (he has hair). In a just world, he'd have a very good shot. Affleck was even kind enough to provide him several Oscar clips.

This is also the sort of film that is never nominated for Best Art Direction, but should be.

[Bog]

She's good, I agree with that statement...whether or not the performance will translate to mass amounts of critics awards or notices is another story. Seems to me more of a Golden Globe nod type role, or to acknowledge the seemingly great respect for the film and Ben Affleck's admirable directorial debut.

I feel as though Casey Affleck overshadows Amy Ryan and I think this is just his year...and while his chance at a double nomination is absolutely zero, it's really a shame because with his fabulous performance in Assasination, he feels like Jamie Foxx a few years back....only better, his roles just don't fit into the categories the right way

It will be a damn crime though if he is left with a singular supporting nomination, not to make light of this since he is just now breaking out of his Ocean's/Good Will Hunting goon role, but feels unjust