Abandon (2002)

Such a frustrating disappointment

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

No spoilers because we could not make it through this film when trying again the next day.

So this was Katie Holmes when she was young, a cute and engaging kid of 23. And then she met 'Mr. Clear'. Well, let's put all that behind us, along with all those transcended engrams. Let's consider this film instead. This is a story about a girl who is trying to complete her Ph.D. thesis at university and a detective approaches her and asks questions about her former boyfriend who disappeared two years ago, and from whom she has heard nothing since. All the evidence points to him being dead, but he is still being treated as a missing persons case. We see a lot of the boyfriend in flashbacks, and he was as odious as, well, let's be frank about this, 'Mr. Clear'. Why do girls go for guys like that? And then there is the boy called Harrison Hobart (funny that, I once knew a Harrison Hobart from northern Ohio, and Katie Holmes comes from northern Ohio; is this an in joke, one wonders, as how could anybody make that name up?). Harrison is in love with Holmes but she doesn't notice. Did he kill the boyfriend out of jealousy? The boyfriend was heir to a huge fortune, as both his parents died when he was young. Has he been done away with for nefarious financial purposes? (Are any financial purposes not nefarious? A question for university students to debate in their dorms.) Holmes seems such a wry sweetie, always smiling in her bemused way. She has been so wronged, in fact, so abandoned (hence the title of the film). The poor kid was abandoned by her father at the age of five and we see occasional flashback glimpses of that. Such a trauma. How deeply has it affected her? And then to be abandoned by the boyfriend like that. But then he suddenly returns without warning and starts taunting her. What is wrong with the guy? Has he no heart? The cop is protective, falls for her, and she for him. Soon they are an item. Zooey Deschanel is Holmes's cute and irreverent pal, and is very good at being an off the wall friend. But the real knockout performance in this film is by Melanie Lynskey as a dippy girl who keeps chatting to Holmes in the library. Lynskey makes a fantastic character out of this small supporting role. Then we get the plot twists. However, a gentleman never tells.

What does it matter if the plot moved slowly? I don't agree with the other comments here that say that there was no character development or that the movie was boring. It wasn't. It built up slowly but firmly to a very disturbing ending. The filming was brilliant, dark, moody, creepy. It kept me on the edge of my seat. It was a disturbing film because it hinted all the time at Katie's possible mental illness and her real abandonment issues, but somehow you were rooting for her to be the heroine and to find happiness with the cop. It almost seemed at times that reality was forcing its way into Katie's consciousness, which scared her, and then she returned to the self that she presented to the world. She was a psychopath. The library scene was scary, as was the scene with the strobe lighting where she 'sees' Embry. The abandoned dorm house that was to be razed was also creepy, the way the house stood in the background bathed in a kind of white light at night. It was eerie. The only thing that really didn't make sense was that no investigations of the abandoned dorms were ever done by the police. It would seem to me that this would have been done in reality when students went missing. This is the only reason I didn't give the film a 10. Otherwise, kudos to Katie Holme for great acting, and to Benjamin Bratt as well. His was a sympathetic character.

A pretty little university drama about beautiful kids with no direction. None of the characters are real; none have any real development. This is a screenplay developed by a 3rd year film student at a lesser college. And it really only showcases the cute Katie Holmes (who still sounds like a munchkin at this stage). You have the brilliant but mercurial disappeared boyfriend, the loopy girlfriend, the serious-minded detective (who tries not to look at her body when she walks past), the just barely contained psychopathic jealous suitor, and yes, the jealous/psychopathic female house-mate. Could anything be more predictable? Bambi?