Release Date: October 18, 2002
Starring: Katie Holmes, Benjamin Bratt, Charlie Hunnam, Zooey Deschanel
Directed by: Stephen Gaghan
Written by: Stephen Gaghan
Distributed by: Lions Gate Films
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (drug and alcohol content, sexuality, some violence, language)
Lo, how the mighty have fallen. In Abandon, Katie Holmes, once a pre-Britney Spears icon of teen pop-dom, has been reduced to forgettable roles of the femme fatale flavor. Benjamin Bratt, once on the arm of America's sweetheart Julia Roberts, has become just another good-looking guy in the wings. And Stephen Gaghan, only two years removed from his Oscar win for the screenplay to 2000's Traffic, has the helm for all this and more in an uninspired, convoluted collegiate thriller.
Actually, for most of the movie, "all this and more" will seem like a lie, because writer-director Gaghan has made the near-fatal mistake of being what the English call "too clever by half." In concentrating his efforts on shocking and amazing his audience with the thriller genre's damningly ubiquitous surprise twist, he's left the majority of the movie to lie fallow, devoid of compelling drama, believable characters, or even cheap thrills.
Foremost among these characters is Katie Burke (Holmes), a college senior and business student who's struggling with her thesis paper and her post-graduation options in the face of a seemingly imminent mental breakdown. On to the scene comes Detective Wade Handler (Bratt), who's investigating the disappearance and possible death of Katie's boyfriend Embry (Charlie Hunnam, a Heath Ledger look-alike who appears to have been cast because he doesn't comb his hair and he has an attractive mole on his left cheek) two years earlier.
At first, it doesn't seem like Katie has much to offer the detective, but then she begins to catch fleeting glimpses of Embry around campus. Or does she? Only Wade seems to believe her that Embry has come back into her life, even as he begins to fall in love with the attractive young Katie himself.
Neither Bratt nor Holmes has much to offer in the two leads, although they're so incoherently developed that it's possible to account their lackluster performances to the script's rough edges. Gaghan, who managed an ensemble cast of wonderfully vivid characters in Traffic, has lost his touch here, relying on flashbacks and stock characters to add life to the world he creates in Abandon.
Katie, for instance, has had a lifelong fear of abandonment, ever since her father left her when she was young, although this is laid out for the audiences in fairly vague terms and, surprisingly, is supposed to account for almost all of her actions. Other strands of her character come and go: she met Embry through a school choir program, but the reason for this is an afterthought at best; on the other hand, it's equally hard to decide why she's a business student, other than the economy of emotions Holmes displays in her flat performance. Holmes has talent -- she was sensational as an oversexed country club debutante in 2000's The Gift -- but none of it is evident here.
On that note, the oversexed supporting actress is one of the longstanding traditions of thrillers, and it's almost possible to forgive Gaghan for his reliance on this device in Abandon because in this case, the character, Katie's best friend, is played with endearing recklessness by the immensely watchable Zooey Deschanel.
Much like his sudden inability to create convincing characters, though, Gaghan also shows a surprising ineptitude when it comes to milking tension from a thriller. He has severally potentially frightening sets, including the lonely, garishly fluorescent library basement, a condemned and crumbling campus building, and an isolated country house, but none of these serve the purpose they should. His few attempts to provide some real thrills, as in the scene when Katie goes to visit Embry at his country house, prove to be particularly bland.
Part of this is due to the fact that Gaghan keeps Katie and Embry's back-story hidden until the very end. The viewer may reason that Katie is afraid of Embry's return because she knows a secret of his, or he knows a secret of hers, or perhaps both, but it's difficult to pinpoint the exact conflict. Everything becomes clear in the end, and in fact, the movie's final 10 minutes are much better than the 90 that precede them, but by the time Abandon gets there, it's not worth it. Stephen Gaghan has a knack for storytelling, but it appears it's a knack that needs some refining.
all contents © 2002 Craig Roush