Finally got to check this out on DVD tonight… really solid stuff. I read the novel it was based on earlier this year, so I actually knew all the story already, but it was interesting to see how first time director Ben Affleck handled the story.
Pac ing and style wise it was stark and minimalist, but it’s such a dark and depressing story I think that was a good call. It’s a perfectly awful conundrum that Casey Affleck’s Patrick Kenzie is put in, and he thinks he’s made the right decision, and technically he has to have, but really, you can’t help but realise that he’s wrong as well. BUt they do well to establish Kenzie as a guy of strict morals, and you can see how he ended up doing what he did.
A good allround cast, with veterans like Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman opposite Affleck jr. and Michelle Monaghan, who’s a gorgeous and talented actress, but here kept her look as plain as possible. Again, made sense here. And Amy Ryan was Oscar worthy as the missing girl’s mother — she was an awful mother, yet you could see how she did want to try. She wasn’t deliberately awful, it’s simply how she behaved. Much of the minor cast were Boston locals — this movie oozes that authentic city feel, I think far more so than something like The Departed.
Truly, it wasn’t the most cheerful movie in the world, and there wasn’t much of a happy ending for an yone (except Ben Affleck I think, who has a positive notch in his resume for the first time in a few years), but definitely worth watching.