Director: Heitor Dhalia Writer: Allison Burnett Starring: Amanda Seyfried, Jennifer Carpenter, Wes Bentley Running time: 95 minutes Year: 2012
Amanda Seyfried has established quite a name for herself in recent years. She’s appeared in dirge like Dear John and big starry affairs like Mamma Mia! She’s a thesp who’s willing to try it all. What’s unfathomable is why she chose to take the lead in Gone.
Rescuing the film from the gutter, her character spins a different take on the usual damsel in distress routine. Seyfried embodies the role of a young woman named Jill. The film’s first fifteen minutes is crammed full of her insistence that she was once the victim of a kidnapping. As it goes in frustrating fodder like this; it falls on the deaf ears of a bumbling police force.
Convinced her kidnapper is after her once more, Jill tries to rally the cops to help her. Where Gone fails spectacularly is in its choice to tread the path beaten down by countless films before. Even her own Mum thinks she’s full of bullshit. It’s a tired excuse used to force the story forward and further alienate Jill.
To be honest, she’s much better off without the cast of selfish bastards out to stop her. Her Mum is in cahoots with the fuzz. Her best friend (an underused Jennifer Carpenter) wants her out of her life and every other person she turns to has an ulterior motive.
The law enforcement angle was thrown in presumably as an afterthought. With the exception of the Lieutenant, other officers are scattered into scenes with no dialogue and no direction. Wes Bentley’s recently-transferred cop exists solely so a massive wodge of exposition can be dumped into dialogue.
Jill would have been better off with her kidnapper. At least he gave a shit.
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Image courtesy of Film
