‘GONE’(2012)

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Amanda Seyfried is a stereotyped actress. She has a reputation for playing the sweet fiancée or the girl-next-door rather than an action star. The pretty blue-eyed blonde doesn’t seem to have the right stature it takes to make a good kick-butt kind of star as this role would requite but to her credit, she pulls it off. gone

Gone (2012) Film Review

No one takes her her seriously, they didn’t then and they aren’t now. Not the police or her younger sister. But Jill Clayton (Seyfried) is not going to let anyone call her that “crazy Clayton girl.” She knows what happened and she’s not going to stop until she proves it. In the aftermath of her parents death, from her own home, Jill was kidnapped. Miraculously, she becomes the one victim of the serial killer to escape. Her reports to the police eventually goes to the bottom of the pile when nothing she says proves truthful.

Later, she’s put into a mental institution before her sister Molly (Emily Wickersham) secures her release. But Jill isn’t willing to give up so easily. Every chance she gets she goes out to the forest park, trying to find where he kept her. Then it happens all over again, only this time, Molly disappears.  

‘GONE’ (2012). Amanda Seyfried plays a woman seeking answers in this tense thriller. #Movies #Moviearchives Share on X

Movie trivia says this is one of the titles that critics didn’t screen, and I can see why this didn’t turn out to be a success but Gone is surprisingly good and the acting isn’t half bad. Its big-name cast gives the movie recognition and the plot isn’t as pathetic as viewers may think. Seyfried delivers an authentic performance; she has a fragility that is actually advantageous to the character. Likewise, Emily Wickersham (who later goes on to co-star in CBS’ NCIS) turns in a believable performance.

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The script isn’t fabulous, and nearly five minutes pass before there’s any conversation (more about this later) but the suspense isn’t terrible. It puts you on the edge of you seat a time or two and the overall ambience is fabulous. There’s so many small things that contribute to Jill’s paranoia, which then of course, makes us more hyped. In part what I do like about the story is that the audience never questions the validity of Jill’s story; we “know” it’s true. It’s one of the reasons the film works so well.

As I say earlier in the review, Gone definitely tends more on the slow side. There’s a lot of moments in which Jill is simply doing Internet searches or knocking on doors but I think to work, this movie needs this. It’s part of what drives the character of Jill. Another thing I will say; the ending is quite unsatisfying. It just kind of, ends. It isn’t necessarily a bad ending because there’s nothing else to know, but it’s still somehow incomplete. If there’s an upside, I do love Jill’s final line. Certainly not the
best movie of the year, this is also far from the worst. There’s some edge-of-your-seat thrills and chills and allows the heroine to have the last word. It’s one that gives us something to think on. If nothing else, it makes us realize that we do have to be on defense in a world filled with scary people.  

Content: the movie shows a shot of a woman showering with a full side view [she is shadowed by the curtain]. There might be a sexual innuendo [a one-sided conversation implies a guy wants to spend the night with his girlfriend]; a woman takes pills for a condition, and there is reference to drugs and alcoholism. Guns are fired and one man is shot three times then lit on fire [we hear his screams]. There are some tense moments. There is profanity including one use of the f-word, sh*t and others. The film is PG-13.