Keane (film)
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| Keane | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Directed by | Lodge Kerrigan |
| Produced by | Steven Soderbergh Andrew Fierbeg Brian Bell Jenny Schweitzer |
| Written by | Lodge Kerrigan |
| Starring | Damian Lewis Abigail Breslin Amy Ryan |
| Cinematography | John Foster |
| Editing by | Andrew Hafitz |
| Distributed by | Magnolia Pictures US Soda Pictures UK |
| Release date(s) |  September 9, 2005 September 22, 2006 |
| Running time | 100 min |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Budget | Under US$1,000,000 |
| IMDb profile | |
Keane is an American 2004 independent, low-budget film written and directed by Lodge Kerrigan and introduced by executive producer Steven Soderbergh. Set and filmed in New York, it stars Damian Lewis as William Keane, a schizophrenic and disturbed man trying to come to terms with the abduction of his daughter three months earlier. The film focuses on the brief relationship that Keane strikes up with a young girl and her mother who he meets in the hotel he is living in.
Shot in 32 days for less than $1,000,000 the film was Kerrigan's second attempt at telling the story about a parent coping with the loss of a child through abduction. Two years earlier he completed filming a picture called In God's Hands, however, the negative was ruined in an accident at the film lab. Keane also shares a similar theme to his first film Clean, Shaven which focuses on a schizophrenic man trying to get his daughter back from her adoptive mother.
Keane premiered in 2004 at the Telluride Film Festival and was also screened at the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. It won both the critics award and the July special prize at the 2005 Deauville American Film Festival before getting a limited New York only theatre release on September 9, 2005.
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[edit] Plot
The film opens with the central character, William Keane, searching for his missing daughter Sophia in the Manhattan bus station she was abducted from three months previously. The scene gives the impression that Keane is experiencing some kind of mental breakdown and is possibly in the midst of a schizophrenic episode. After spending a night wandering the streets of New York searching for his daughter and sleeping on the side of a busy street Keane returns to a cheap hotel in which he is living and pays for with his disability cheques.
Alone in his hotel room, Keane talks to himself describing his ex-wife and the birth of his daughter and the newspaper cuttings of another abducted New Jersey girl who was found and reunited with her parents which he keeps with him in an envelope. As his mood changes so do his activities, during dark times he can be found at the bus station again, trying to work out how his daughter vanished and who took her. We see him in a nightclub snorting cocaine and having unprotected sex in a toilet cubicle with Michelle, a character we presume he has only just met in the club.
During the course of the film Keane befriends fellow hotel resident Lynn Bedik (Amy Ryan) and her daughter Kira (Abigail Breslin) who is of similar age to Keane's own daughter, Keane seems to have aspirations for a relationship with Lynn but she is still in a relationship with Kira's father Eric who is working away. The rest of the film centers on the relationship between Keane and Kira along with the emotions that Keane is suffering from when he is left to look after Kira for a day while her mother is away visiting Eric. When it becomes clear to Keane that Lynn is leaving to join Eric we see Keane take Kira from school without the permission of Lynn and bring her to the same bus terminal where Keane's own daughter disappeared from.
[edit] Production
[edit] Development
The idea for a film about child abduction came from director Lodge Kerrigans own fears of his daughter disappearing while they out on shopping trips "... it was my worst fear. I realized, how in just four minutes, four minutes! your child could be abducted. Your life could be changed forever and there would be no way to recover from it. I knew that kind of visceral feeling would be a good starting point."[1] Kerrigan shot In God's Hands, also produced by Steven Soderbergh, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard about the disintegration of a family after a child had been abducted. However, the film was never released because after shooting had completed there was "irreversible negative damage"[2] and the film was gone. With nothing left of his film to salvage Kerrigan was still looking to explore the subject of child abduction that had gripped his imagination and so he began work writing and researching a new film that would become Keane.[3]
"I bounced back pretty quickly. I think there was a 2-year period, between that and this. I wrote a new script. Steven went out and got it financed. It is a very devastating thing to happen, and the most devastating thing for me was how so many individuals turned their back on it, and ran for cover. That was really upsetting. Steven was the only one; he stood behind me the whole way. It was due to him that I got this made so quickly. Crippling? No. Devastating? Yes."[4]
[edit] Filming
Kerrigan knew that the location of this film would be key, even going so far as to write much of the script while walking around New York to try and get a feel for the main character and his surroundings, "It was exhilarating, working with that kind of energy. I also wrote a lot of the film there as well. I would go and play out a scene and try to act it out... to some degree try to find the emotions, by recreating, beat by beat, his mindset, the abduction of his daughter. It all goes back to location... when you are working in the actual area, you can answer all of the questions that would arise with much more immediacy."[1]
The film is shot with a handheld camera with single takes of up to 4 minutes and with no cutaways. Damien Lewis' character appears in every scene and long close-ups of his face during episodes of his schizophrenia were intended to let the viewer feel sympathy for Keane and the anguish that he is feeling.[5] The film contains long periods of little or no dialogue combined with the total lack of a score.
Shooting was completed within 32 days,[6] and filming all took place in and around New York's Port Authority, locations chosen are not familiar New York landmarks but dire, almost dirty streets and backdrops that are used to help emphasise the downward spiral of the central character. "Poverty is part of it... people who suffer from mental illness are marginalized...and that place, the surrounding area, with all the confusion, the buses and people coming in and out...it is really an appropriate location."[1]
John Foster was nominated for an Independant Spirit Award for his cinematography work on this film.
[edit] Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Damian Lewis | William Keane |
| Abigail Breslin | Kira Bedik |
| Amy Ryan | Lynn Bedik |
| Liza Colón-Zayas | 1st Ticket Agent |
| John Tormey | 2nd Ticket Agent |
| Brenda Denmark | Commuter |
| Ed Wheeler | 1st Bus Driver/Ticket Taker |
| Christopher Evan Welch | Motel Clerk |
| Yvette Mercedes | Woman in Department Store |
| Chris Bauer | Bartender |
| Lev Gorn | Drug Dealer |
| Frank Wood | Assaulted Commuter |
| Alexander Robert Scott | 1st Cab Driver |
| Phil McGlaston | 2nd Cab Driver |
| Tina Holmes | Michelle |
[edit] Reception
[edit] Critical
On Rotten Tomatoes, Keane received 82% overall approval out of 57 reviews from critics, with a Cream of the Crop rating of 100% by reviews from major media outlets.[7] Critic Roger Ebert gave it 3.5 stars in a review that highlighted the similarities to the Jodie Foster movie Flightplan which opened the week previous to Keane, both stories dealing with a parent searching for a missing daughter amid suspicion that the child might not have actually existed in the first place.[8]
Some reviewers however focused on the hard style of the film and the way that it was able to share with the audience the mental anguish and pain that Keane was feeling. "Kerrigan is without peer at plumbing the violence of the mind. Keane means to shakes us, and does."[9] Wrote Peter Travis from Rolling Stone, Kevin Thomas of the LA Times wrote "Keane is emotionally involving right from the beginning through its final frame."[10] New Republic said the film is "extraordinary--vivid, stripped, intense."[11]
Jean Lowerison in writing for the San Diego Metropoliton while praising the performance of Damien Lewis in the lead role was critical of the style of the film "Professionals in the mental health field may find this film interesting; the rest of us will probably find our attention wandering a bit, pondering how good "Keane" might have been."[12]
[edit] Commercial
After spending a year touring the major film festivals throughout 2004/2005 Keane opened in five theatres in New York on September 9, 2005, during its 4 week run in New York it grossed a total of $33 256. It was released in France on the September 21, 2005 along with Algeria, Monaco, Morocco and Tunisia but a full year had passed before it was released in the UK and Ireland, reaching London cinemas on September 22, 2006. The total worldwide gross for Keane stands at $391 255.[13]
[edit] DVD
Keane was released on DVD in the US in March, 2006 and in the UK on the January 22, 2007. The Australian release of the DVD was on the March 14, 2007.
The DVD release contained an alternate version of the film edited by producer Steven Soderbergh, 15 minutes shorter than the original. It changes the entire context of the film, notably leaving the subject of Keane's search ambiguous until much later as opposed to Kerrigan's cut in which that he's searching for his missing daughter is made know immediately.[14]
Soderbegh sees his cut as an experiment and one that would only hold any real interest to critics and aspiring filmmakers. "While I was away on location, Lodge sent me a copy of Keane to look at before he locked picture. I loved the film and told him so, but I also sent him this version to look at, in case it jogged anything (it didn't). In any case, we agreed it was an interesting (to us) example of how editing affects intent. Or something."[15]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Roman, Shari (2005-09-18). Presumed Missing. Filmmaker magazine. Retrieved on 2007-05-21.
- ^ Chaw, Walter (2005-11-27). Interview with Lodge Kerrigan. Film Freak Central. Retrieved on 2007-05-21.
- ^ Kaufman, Anthony (2005-09-08). On the Edge. indieWIRE. Retrieved on 2007-05-21.
- ^ Kaufman, Anthony (2005-09-08). On the Edge. indieWIRE. Retrieved on 2007-05-21.
- ^ Calhoun, Dave (2005-09-21). Lodge Kerrigan Q&A. Time Out. Retrieved on June 2, 2007.
- ^ Winter, Jessica (2006-09-01). It's all in the mind. The Guardian. Retrieved on June 2, 2007.
- ^ Martin, Joe. Keane on Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved on 2007-05-21.
- ^ Ebert, Roger (2005-09-30). Review of Keane. Suntimes. Retrieved on 2007-05-21.
- ^ Travers, Peter (2005-05-15). Review of Keane. Rolling Stone. Retrieved on 2007-05-21.
- ^ Thomas, Kevin (2005-09-16). Go inside the head of a frantic dad. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved on 2007-05-21.
- ^ Kauffmann, Stanley (2005-09-19), "Heights and Depths". New Republic. 233 (12):28-29
- ^ Lowerison, Jean (September 2005). Keane: Fighting the voices. San Diego Metropoliton. Retrieved on 2007-06-06.
- ^ Keane box office receipts. Box office mojo. Retrieved on June 2, 2007.
- ^ O'Sullivan, Michael (2006-03-24). Take Two: A Keane remix by Soderbergh. Washington Post. Retrieved on 2007-06-02.
- ^ Keane DVD notes by Steven Soderbergh
[edit] External links
- Keane at the Internet Movie Database
- Keane at Rotten Tomatoes
