STARS: Amanda Seyfried, Daniel Sunjata, Wes Bentley, Sebastian Stan,
Emily Wickersham
DIRECTOR: Heitor Dhalia
GENRE: Psychological Thriller
Would you begin to question your own sense of reality when everyone around you is telling you that you are delusional? Young Jill Parrish (Amanda Seyfried) never wavers from her belief in her own truth--but the questions remain, and become intensified for the audience in the new thriller, Gone, from Brazilian director Heitor Dhalia.
Jill has a history. A history of mental illness. Or so it is has been declared. A year ago she told a story of being kidnapped by a really bad dude who kept her imprisoned in a well and tried to kill her. She escaped. But her story didn't check out with the police. They could find no trace of the man, and no trace of the big hole in the ground where she claimed he kept her. Another blow to her credibility is that she spent some time in a mental institution after her ordeal.
When her sister, Molly, (Emily Wickersham) turns up missing from the home they share together, she fears that the man is back--intending to take her again, but settling for the sister when Jill wasn't home. She reports the disappearance to the cops, but due to her history, they flat out don't believe her. I found this element of Gone hard to swallow, because no matter what, the authorities are supposed to routinely follow up on missing persons reports. These cops come off as totally cavalier boobs. But, as is often the case with the psychological thriller genre, SOMEBODY has to be or do something really stupid to make the plot work.
Jill is thrust into the role of being the lone crusader trying to find and save Molly before it's too late. When the police learn she has a gun, they feel she may be a danger to herself and others, and so the "manhunt" for her is on. It then becomes a race against time--and this is where the dramatic tension is created--as Jill tries to find a potential killer before the cops nab her and put her out of commission.
Gone is a decent thriller--nothing that's going to tax your brain all that much--we know we will learn in the end whether Jill is connected to reality or a real nut job. And whether sis--who has a drinking problem--has maybe just gone off on an alcoholic bender and will stagger home later with a slurred WHASSUP, SUCKAHS? There ARE enough red herrings floating around in the soup of this movie to keep us guessing and second guessing as to who the real bad guy is-assuming he exists.
Amanda Seyfried herself may be the biggest draw for guys--she's at least a 9 on the beauty scale--with (not Betty Davis) Zooey Deschanel eyes, big as saucers. She turns in a believable performance as the girl nobody believes. (Tell me what I say!)
Nobody else worth mentioning here, but doggone if Gone doesn't deliver a satisfying "touche" type of ending that may put a smile on your face as you walk out of the theater.
Grade: B
