life is complicated

Rating: 10/10 (26 November 2007)

...in contrast to the impression you get from much infotainment. "Gone Baby Gone" reflects this complexity. I was mildly hopeful about this film given the intrigue of "Mystic River". "Gone Baby Gone" looks deep into all of our souls and asks whether we will choose life or death. The reviews seems to capture the essence of the film very well and I haven't got much to add, but I would also like to recognize Ben Affleck's direction which I think became more assured as the film went on. I think at times he overstated the local flavor of the film at the beginning, as though there aren't a lot of other places in the country that can't boast similarly....and there was a part early in the movie in which I thought the climax had come too early. But the mystery just deepens and Ben Affleck grows more confident and at ease with some very delicate moral areas. As noted, Casey Affleck is...well yes, perhaps there is the whiff of nepotism, but in addition, he's really really really good. He is misread as a pretty boy throughout the movie when he actually has a quite clear moral vision. The challenges he and his detective partner and lover Angie Gennaro (Michelle Monaghan playing her character as loving but reserved and professional, perhaps to retain some distance from the horrors of the world) face are endlessly astonishing; I like films such as this, like Mystic River and LA Confidential in which it seems the double-crosses never end, but I didn't see the depth of the horror here coming. The acting is, as also stated by many other posters, excellent. I found the flawed mother Helene McCready played very capably by Amy Ryan. Ryan captures the dangerous flaws of a very troubled woman for whom there may or may not be a lot of hope. Ultimately however, it is questionable whether her sins are more serious than some other characters'. Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman are typically able and Amy Madigan is perhaps the most conventional character in the film.
Dennis Lehane's novel provides the source material for a wonderfully gritty movie, as it did for Mystic River and apparently another upcoming film, "Shutter Island" which Scorsese has signed on to bring to the screen, and in which Leonardo DiCaprio is starring. But Ben Affleck's cool, assured direction is most crucial to translating this complex and soulful novel to the screen. This is a modern film in which the value of a human being is recognized.