Keane (film)

Infobox_Film
name = Keane
image_size = 200px


director = Lodge Kerrigan
producer = Steven Soderbergh
Andrew Fierbeg
Brian Bell
Jenny Schweitzer
writer = Lodge Kerrigan
starring = Damian Lewis
Abigail Breslin
Amy Ryan
cinematography = John Foster
editing = Andrew Hafitz
distributor = Magnolia Pictures US
Soda Pictures UK
released = flagicon|USA September 9, 2005
flagicon|UK September 22, 2006
runtime = 100 min
country = USA
language = English
budget = Under US$1,000,000
imdb_id = 0420291|

"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.

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 impromptu, standup 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.

Production

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."cite web | last = Roman | first = Shari | title = Presumed Missing | publisher = Filmmaker magazine | date = 2005-09-18 | url = http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/archives/online_features/presumed_missing.php | accessdate = 2007-05-21] 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" [cite web | last = Chaw | first = Walter | title = Interview with Lodge Kerrigan | publisher = Film Freak Central | date = 2005-11-27 | url = http://www.filmfreakcentral.net/notes/lkerriganinterview.htm | accessdate = 2007-05-21 ] 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. [cite web | last = Kaufman | first = Anthony | title = On the Edge | publisher = indieWIRE | date = 2005-09-08 | url = http://www.indiewire.com/people/2005/09/on_the_edge_lod.html | accessdate = 2007-05-21 ]

"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." [cite web | last = Kaufman | first = Anthony | title = On the Edge | publisher = indieWIRE | date = 2005-09-08 | url = http://www.indiewire.com/people/2005/09/on_the_edge_lod.html | accessdate = 2007-05-21 ]

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."

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. [cite web | last = Calhoun | first = Dave | title = Lodge Kerrigan Q&A | publisher = Time Out | date = 2005-09-21 | url = http://www.timeout.com/film/news/1417.html | accessdate = June 2| accessyear=2007] The film contains long periods of little or no dialogue combined with the total lack of a score.

Shooting was completed within 32 days,cite web | last = Winter | first = Jessica | title = It's all in the mind | publisher = The Guardian | date = 2006-09-01 | url = http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,1861818,00.html | accessdate = June 2 | accessyear=2007] 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."

John Foster was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for his cinematography work on this film.

Cast

Reception

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. [cite web | last = Martin | first = Joe | title = Keane on Rotten Tomatoes | work = | publisher = | date = | url = http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/keane/ | format = | doi = | accessdate = 2007-05-21 ] 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. [cite web | last = Ebert | first = Roger | title = Review of Keane | publisher = Suntimes | date = 2005-09-30 | url = http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050929/REVIEWS/50928005/1023 | accessdate = 2007-05-21 ]

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." [cite web | last = Travers | first = Peter | title = Review of Keane | publisher = Rolling Stone | date = 2005-05-15 | url = http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/movie/6824412/review/7636516/keane | accessdate = 2007-05-21 ] 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." [cite web | last = Thomas | first = Kevin | title = Go inside the head of a frantic dad | publisher = Los Angeles Times | date = 2005-09-16 | url = http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-et-keane16sep16,0,7481507.story | accessdate = 2007-05-21 ] "New Republic" said the film is "extraordinary--vivid, stripped, intense." [Kauffmann, Stanley (2005-09-19), "Heights and Depths". "New Republic". 233 (12):28-29]

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." [cite web | last = Lowerison | first = Jean | title = Keane: Fighting the voices | publisher = San Diego Metropoliton | date = September 2005 | url = http://sandiegometro.com/reel/index.php?reelID=854 | accessdate = 2007-06-06 ]

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. [cite web | title = Keane box office receipts | publisher = Box office mojo | url = http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=main&id=keane.htm | accessdate = June 2 | accessyear = 2007]

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. [cite web | last = O'Sullivan | first = Michael | title = Take Two: A Keane remix by Soderbergh | publisher = Washington Post | date = 2006-03-24 | url = http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/23/AR2006032300541.html | accessdate = 2007-06-02 ]

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." [ "Keane" DVD notes by Steven Soderbergh ]

References

External links

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