Themes: Missing Persons, Fathers and Daughters, Down on Their Luck
Main Cast: Damian Lewis, Abigail Breslin, Amy Ryan, Tina Holmes, Christopher Evan Welch
Release Year: 2004
Country: US
Run Time: 94 minutes
Plot
American independent filmmaker Lodge Kerrigan returned after a six-year hiatus with this formally challenging tale of a disheveled man desperately searching New York City for his young daughter. Keane takes its name from its central character, a middle-aged man (Damien Lewis) who wanders Port Authority with a seemingly tenuous grasp of his sanity, muttering to himself and causing altercations with passers-by. He claims to have lost his daughter at a bus station, and consistently pleads for assistance from indifferent authority figures. When he's not roaming the streets, he uses his meager savings to rent out a room nightly in a cheap hotel; there, he meets Lynn (Amy Ryan), a single mother with a daughter, Kyra (Abigail Breslin), almost the same age as Keane's missing child. As he grows closer to Lynn and Kyra, he starts to see the young girl as instrumental in deciphering his own loss. Keane premiered at the 2004 Toronto Film Festival before securing a 2005 theatrical release. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
Review
The crippling mental effects of losing a daughter to a kidnapper are explored in Keane, an intense character study brought into disquieting focus by actor Damien Lewis. There are hundreds of ways to make this subject matter play like a goopy TV movie, but writer-director Lodge Kerrigan resists them by never giving the audience any information beyond the immediate perspective of the main character. And because the underappreciated Lewis exudes such instability, his perspective is totally unreliable. He could either be a grieving father or a damaged psychopath, and neither Lewis nor Kerrigan is going to let the audience off the hook as to which one. Yet Lewis is also clever enough in his portrayal to make viewers like him and root for him in spite of their reservations, gaining their sympathy by doing his best with what he's got, regardless of what came before. Lewis brings us into a world of eternal now, where every moment is broken down into "can I find my daughter or can't I," and the daily human needs get accomplished (or fail to get accomplished) haphazardly and absently. The whole film has that same scruffy feel that Lewis brings to it, in keeping with Kerrigan's indie background and that of his producer, Steven Soderbergh. Amy Ryan (briefly) and Abigail Breslin (more crucially) lend excellent support to Lewis' central madness. Kerrigan's only possible mistake is that he relies a little too much on Keane talking to himself, which -- even though his dialogue is not particularly expository -- feels at times like a screenwriting shortcut, a brief reliance on telling instead of showing. But the major impression left by Keane is how powerlessness transforms a person, to the point that they're unrecognizable even to themselves. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
Liza Colon-Zayas - First Ticket Agent; John Tormey - Second Ticket Agent; Brenda Thomas Denmark - Commuter; Ed Wheeler - Ticket Taker; Yvette Mercedes - Woman in Department Store; Christopher Bauer - Bartender; Lev Gorn - Drug Dealer; Frank Wood - Assaulted Commuter; Alexander Robert Scott - Cab Driver; Phil McGlaston - Cab Driver; Ted Sod - Gas Station Attendant; Stephen Henderson - Garage Employee; Omar Rodriguez - Garage Manager; Sean Modica - Ice Rink Employee; Sharon Wilkins - Third Ticket Agent; Millini Kantayya - Newsstand Cashier; Ray Fitzgerald - Ticket Taker
Credit
Peter Yesair - Art Director, Bernie Telsey - Casting, Heidi Levitt - Casting, David Vaccari - Casting, Brian Bell - Co-producer, Jenny Schweitzer - Co-producer, Catherine George - Costume Designer, Urs Hirschbiegel - First Assistant Director, Lodge Kerrigan - Director, Andrew Hafitz - Editor, Steven Soderbergh - Executive Producer, Jennifer Quesenbery - Location Manager, Petra Barchi - Production Designer, John Foster - Cinematographer, Steven Soderbergh - Producer, Andrew Fierberg - Producer, Douglas Crosby - Stunts Coordinator, Manny Siverio - Stunts Coordinator, Lodge Kerrigan - Screenwriter, Michael Meador - Additional Cinematography, Leni Calas - Additional Cinematography, Leda Nornang - Additional Cinematography, John Schwartz - Gaffer, Angela Lee - Post Production Coordinator, Linus Hume - Post Production Supervisor, Gigi Causey - Production Supervisor, Jose Pavon - Properties Master, Larry Blake - Re-Recording Mixer, Matt Coby - Re-Recording Mixer, Jodi Domanic-Riccio - Script Supervisor, Heather M. Daniels - Second Assistant Director, Larry Blake - Supervising Sound Editor, Julia Lallas - Key Hairstylist, Maya Hardinge - Key Make-up, Steve Guilbaud - Production Accountant, Jeremy L. Balon - Set Decorator, Tom Varga - Production Sound Mixer, Film Effects - Title Design
This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
