Meagan Kennelly Journal Staff
A lot can be done with a mind-bending plot line putting the audience in suspense, trying to figure out whether the main character should be suing the Oregon police department for negligence or checking herself into an insane asylum. Unfortunately though, writer Allison Brunett just never made it happen in his latest film, Gone.
There were times during the movie when I thought, “this is awesome!” and times when I thought, “really, that’s what you came up with?”
To put one word on these mixed emotions I would have to say it was average.
By the middle of the film, I thought I was either one step ahead of every move the character was making or there was an amazing plot twist at the end that was going to somehow blow it out of the water. Without giving too much away, I have to disappoint by informing you there was no plot twist. It was excruciatingly predictable. There was a certain suspense, but it was really just waiting for something that never came, and there were a few jumps but even those were predictable, like cats jumping out of closet doors. So with that, I was disappointed. I left feeling like the movie was unfinished, like a lot could have been done with it that wasn’t.
The movie opens with some strong visuals of Oregon’s Forest Park, the place the viewers slowly begin to learn is where Jill Conway (Amanda Seyfried) is dumped in a hole to await her death after an abduction a few months back.
But was she?
When her sister Molly (Emily Wickersham) appears to be missing, Jill runs to the police department, like any person would do. It is here we learn a lot more about Jill that we didn’t know, like when she came crawling out of Forest Park crying “abduction” there were no battle wounds, no sexual assault, no forced entry into her home, no dugout holes with bones at the bottom like the one she described, there was nothing, no sign of an abduction. When police started poking holes in her story, Jill apparently went looney tunes and was involuntarily admitted to a mental institution (for the second time).
So you could see where the question, “But was she?” would come from. Unfortunately, it was so poorly done that I could indeed see the attempt at making her look crazy but there was not one point where that thought actually crossed my mind. In fact, the angry/depressed/anxiety-ridden Jill Conway wasn’t very believable, crazy or not. She was an untruthful, pistol-popping, police-chasing criminal who was way too over the top for me. There were as many holes in the character as there were in the plot. Seyfried did what she could with this helpless character.
Whether you believe the character or not, the police department doesn’t, so the entire movie you are watching them do nothing and Seyfried do all the work. Every guy she comes in contact with has the same “rapey-eyes” as the next, making you guess every single male in the movie is the abductor. Finally, get this, she just calls him on her cell: “Hey wanna meet up?”… “Sure, why not?”
I’ll let you see what happens from there.
The good news is, it is so fast paced that if you shut off your analytical thinking for a good 90 minutes, you will most likely not catch all of the major flaws in this movie, In fact, it will probably be quite comical, like how number one on my “abductor list” (who happened to be a police man) randomly disappears from the entire film to give chicken soup to his sick mother?! It’s priceless. It is for this reason I can’t decide whether the film is terrible or written for pure entertainment, not intending to be analyzed as non-fiction.
I don’t recommend seeing Gone in theaters, as it really doesn’t leave much of an impression. But, if you’re curious, catch it On Demand and see what side you’re on: pure genius or what the hell were you thinking?
