GONE

US, 2012, 94 minutes, Colour.
Amanda Seyfried, Daniel Sunjata, Jennifer Carpenter, Sebastian Stan, Wes Bentley, Emily Wickersham, Michael Pare.
Directed by Heitor Dhalia.

Gone is an abduction story. Amanda Seyfried plays Jill, trying to recover after being abducted two years earlier and escaping from her captor. However, she lives in dread that he will try to take her again.

She is not wrong. But, he takes her sister instead and then lures Jill back to the deep hole in the forest outside Portland, Oregon, where he had imprisoned her before. Though she has been on suicide watch and having therapy, she takes control of events when she discovers her sister missing. The police dismiss her claims because of her medical and mental history.

Most of the action takes place over the one day, with Jill’s discovery and then her quite skilful detection work to track down the criminal – the police could take lessons from her! It all builds up to a climax, of course, with Jill confronting her captor.

It’s a film that would have more impact on its female audience, especially younger women who would identify with Jill, both in her suffering the abduction and in her taking control of her life and the case.
1. A satisfying abduction thriller? The audience – female and identifying with the central character?

2. Portland, the forests and the city, homes and the police precinct? The streets, factories? Stores? Authentic? The musical score?

3. Jill, her personality, her age, her life story, her parents’ death, her collapse, the abduction and the experience, the flashbacks indicating the nature of the abduction? Molly and staying with her? Her being hard, reclusive, her medical history and institutions? Medication? Her work, with her co-worker at the diner, the customers? Coping, her fears?

4. Molly, the devoted sister, her studies, the exam, the phone communications, her disappearance?

5. Jill, going home, reaction to Molly’s disappearance, searching the house for details, going to the police?

6. The officer in charge, Powers and his listening to Jill, not believing her, indicating her past history? Sharon, Hood and their work? Hood and his phone call, trying to help? Jill being suspicious and angry?

7. Jill’s detective work, showing skills, talking with the neighbour, the neighbour’s being insulted by Jill’s former silence, going to talk to the widower, his indication of the van, pursuing the van in the streets, talking with the drivers, getting the docket from the van, going to the shop, information about the customer, her hiding from the police in the toilet, the escape through the window? The member of the band, her suspicions that Molly was there, the gay partner? Her talking to the schoolgirls on the street, promising them Justin Bieber tickets, her escape from the police? Going to the hotel, the clash with the janitor, his information about the boarder, the car?

8. The contact with the killer, her driving through the night, the phone connection, in the forest, the directions for the roads, finding the hole? The interaction on the phone, in reality, her falling into the hole?

9. The flashbacks, the abduction, the tape, the bones, in the hole? Her attack on her abductor, getting out of the hole? His reappearance, taunting her? Her defeating him again? Her shooting, the petrol, burning?

10. Molly being free, being under the house? The police, Jill and her telling them it was all her imagination?

11. The passage to the police chief, the photos of the abduction, the map where the hole was? Jill and her success?

12. The plausibility of this kind of scenario? The repercussions on a girl abducted like Jill?