Gone (2012) starring Amanda Seyfried, Daniel Sunjata, Jennifer Carpenter, Sebastian Stan directed by Heitor Dhalia Movie Review

Gone (2012)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Amanda Seyfried in Gone (2012)

Not Quite Gone

"Gone" is a movie which is made in such a way that to review I need to reveal things because right from the word go it is dropping clues as to what happened to explain what happens. As such whilst I will tell you now that "Gone" isn't the greatest movie ever made it is well worth a watch but best watched with the minimal amount of info and this review contains spoilers.

When "Gone" starts we watch Jill (Amanda Seyfried) mapping out a woodland, if you have read a synopsis for the movie you will most likely jump to a conclusion, yet in the next scene we see her at home with her sister. There is tension there as her sister Molly (Emily Wickersham) is unhappy about her sister returning to the woods and brings up something about her own drinking problems, insinuating that these sisters are screwed up in some way, something which is elaborated on not only by a flashback of Jill being gagged with tape but also by the fact she takes self defence classes and loses it over a comment a man makes. I could go on because during the first twenty minutes it paints this picture not only of Jill having fear of men but also general safety issues with a series of locks on the front door. This all build to Jill coming home and Molly having disappeared with Jill becoming convinced what has happened to Molly is the same which happened to her.

Daniel Sunjata in Gone (2012)

This all leads me to what is essentially the story to "Gone" and no one believing Jill that Molly has been kidnapped because no one believes Jill that she was kidnapped either. What this movie wants is for us to question Jill, is she just crazy and made it all up for some emotional issue or is she telling the truth and having to do everything herself. And if that is the case are any of the men who we meet actually involved in the disappearance.

Now I like movies like this and "Gone" works through the idea of a character's sanity quite nicely whilst it also features an impressive cast. But unfortunately director Heitor Dhalia has a pacing which doesn't do the story justice and unless you get drawn in to the detail and also the possibilities of who may be involved it becomes incredibly laboured. Basically "Gone" needs a shot of adrenalin to give it the burst of excitement the story needs rather than just relying on Amanda Seyfried to carry the movie who does a good job despite the odds being stacked against her.

What this all boils down to is that "gone" has its good points and the level of detail early on in building up the situation to establish a possibility of paranoia is good. Unfortunately "Gone" suffers from the wrong pacing which prevents the story from coming to life which means it ends up laboured.


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