SnoopyStyle
Disturbed William Keane (Damian Lewis) is frantically searching the bus terminal in NYC. He's broke and barely able to pay for his room. He befriends neighbor Lynn Bedik (Amy Ryan) and her daughter Kira (Abigail Breslin). He does drugs with Michelle (Tina Holmes). He's looking for his daughter but it's questionable whether it's real or all in his mind.Damian Lewis does a brilliant job as a mentally disturbed man. I love the scene in the bar as he tries to listen to the music. More visual cinematic moves can be done to create his mental illness. He needs to have hallucinations of his daughter and she needs to be on screen. It's also a bit slow at times. Otherwise, this is a great character movie.
waltonadam
I bought this film second hand for £3.00. I would have spent a lot more. Every now and then you stumble across a film and you don't know why your attracted to it without knowing the content or even the cast, but it was probably the name of producer Steven Soderbergh that may have swayed me. I hadn't really seen Damian Lewis before in film but it is one of the best performances I have ever seen from an Englishman portraying an American, a flawless accent that is never in question. The main reason why I feel that it works so well is the scenes with Lewis alone are pure genius, using hand held cameras instantly changing angles to show the pain and mental torment that this person is going through as a result of the abduction of his daughter is so simple but the result is one of the best examples of realism I have ever seen on film. This film is far too short at approx 80 mins but you won't want them back. Its far from uplifting but neither is the world it represents. 9 out of ten
waterford67
Be patient and give this movie the first twenty minutes and then you will be absorbed into the life of the main character William Keane. Keane's struggle with delusions while searching for his kidnapped daughter amongst the dingy world around the port authority bus terminals draws on your inner compassion for a lost soul. Keane's abuse of drugs and anonymous sex adds to the viewer's perception of him as a deeply troubled man.The movie opens with Keane recounting every moment, down to the seconds, of the day his daughter was kidnapped. His schizophrenic thoughts of someone being after him only add to his plight. When he befriends a woman and her daughter in the low rent motel he is staying, you start to wonder if Keane isn't darker than you originally thought. Keane ends up taking care of the woman's daughter, Kira, while the mom is away. You are on the edge of your seat wondering if this movie is going in a very dark direction. Instead, you discover that the little girl brings some normalcy to Kean's life and you get to see how naturally parenting comes to him. The bond that develops between Kira and Keane is sweet and innocent. Keane seems to need the little girl as much she needs him. Eventually, the mother tells Keane that she and Kira will be moving so they can be with Kira's father. Keane struggles with letting Kira go or doing the unthinkable.The performance by Damian Lewis is one of the best I've ever seen. The majority of the movie has solely Mr. Lewis on screen. His engaging performance is the only reason this movie works so well. The last scene is beautifully done and will bring you to tears.
madamebrad
POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEADLike most films which eschew the typical trappings of Hollywood movies, Keane might not be for everyone. Pushing the envelope of cinema as an experience, Lodge Kerrigan gives us a story that is so intense, it threatens to swallow us up in its honesty and realness.Damian Lewis plays Keane, a man on the brink of homelessness and losing his mind. As the film opens, we see Keane frantically looking for Sophie, his young daughter who we gather has disappeared at the port authority, some months earlier. Beside himself with grief, despair and guilt, he searches for her in the way of someone who is obsessed with repetition. You get the feeling he's been doing the exact same circuit day in and day out without a break for months.Keane is a man who is clearly living in hell. This is as bad as it gets on earth; being cognizant enough to feel the pain of a loss like this while also being mentally unstable can only be described as hell on earth.For better or worse, the direction of the film is unrelenting and truly makes us experience Keane up close, and perhaps too personal. Uncomfortable scenes of self-talk, crying and cringe-inducing escapism via alcohol, drugs, violence and frantic sex with a stranger make the film hard to watch at times.As a woman and her young child make their way into Keane's tortured world, we begin to see a different side to Keane. A friendly, conscientious and polite young man emerges from the madness as he begins to focus on this child in front of him, perhaps as she's the same age as his own Sophie. Particularly while he's asked to care for her by the unstable mother, we see a likable, steady personality emerge. While the girl is with Keane, we see him blossom and this is where the only true linear part of Keane's world/story comes to fruition. Will Keane be able to hold on to reality long enough to pull himself away from the hell he's been immersed in? The intensity of the film (you are basically watching Lewis in every scene, and with a close up usually from the shoulders up) is relentless. But, isn't that true of life, itself? How often do we get to look away in real life? All too easily. This film gives us less than two hours of what it is like to be in the world of the mentally ill.Lewis is, in a word, extraordinary as Keane. In my estimation, his performance in this film is the best of his career. Or, anyone else's, for that matter. He never overdoes it and his eyes and face express and contort to give us even more of a realistic rendition of Keane's pain.Much has been made about Lewis's fairly clean cut appearance in the film and critics have said it belies the real face of mental illness. However, those of us who have seen schizophrenia in person know that one of the most heartbreaking and cruel parts of this condition is how normal one can look and seem on the surface. I believe the fact that Keane was not horribly grubby or dirty was a very deliberate choice on the filmmaker's part and it is one that I think is often misunderstood. The fact that Keane might, at any moment "snap out of it" and become "normal" is exactly what the real face of schizophrenia is all about.Also misunderstood is the "mystery" about what happened with Keane's daughter. Much conversation revolves around what really happened to her. Indeed, we aren't ever given solid proof that she existed. Taken at face value, we see a man who was probably struggling with manageable mental illness before something tragic happened to his daughter. Whether he lost her literally or was perhaps lost in a divorce is debatable. Theories of her completely not existing, while certainly possible, aren't probable. And, those who like to talk of Keane having killed his young daughter are clearly missing the point of the entire film and should probably watch it again.Ultimately, if you're uncomfortable watching this film, it is understandable. However, missing it means missing out on one of the most powerful, realistic and personal films made.
