Amanda Seyfried's latest star vehicle, Gone, isn't quite as terrible as Red Riding Hood, but it's another discouraging sign that she seems to have the wrong people making decisions about her career.
I reviewed the film for Screen International, where you need a subscription to read it. But here are a few random thoughts about the film that didn't make my review...
1. I found it interesting that Seyfried's character, still coping from barely surviving her own abduction a year ago, has her big final confrontation in a dark, scary forest. It's where she was kidnapped, and so Gone's big showdown quite literally forces her to face her old fears. There's something wonderfully fairy tale about that, and it's funny that it's the same setup as she encountered in Red Riding Hood. Both movies are essentially about young women who are afraid of the terror that lingers in the woods, which no doubt is meant to symbolize male aggression, adulthood, etc. I wonder if that symmetry appealed to her.
2. Gone is set in Portland, and I gotta say: I tend to give any Oregon-set film at least the benefit of the doubt. Something about those grey skies and that incredible scenery always gets to me. (For what it's worth, when my wife and I spent our honeymoon traipsing up and down the Pacific Coast, we both agreed Portland was our favorite city.) At the same time, I caught myself wondering how the amateur sleuth at the center of Cold Weather would have handled Gone's mystery.
3. Wes Bentley is in Gone. I sincerely hope he's on the road to recovery after so many years lost to addiction. It makes me sad to see him waste his time in mediocre stuff like this.
