In spite of mixed reviews, I think this is a really good movie, a character study of a woman who lost her young daughter.
15 January 2010
Warning: Spoilers
I am a parent but have never lost a child. I would think it would be very hard, but even harder to have lost one not to death but to kidnapping. In that case you never really know what happened, you don't know if you will ever see the child again, you have no closure.

That is the theme of this movie. Sigourney Weaver is Julia Sandburg, happily married mother of two, and moonlights as a lounge singer. But one day at the park, when it was time to go, she turns her back just for a few seconds and then finds that her 3-year-old daughter Maggie is gone. She searches, frantically, everyone else has left, she cannot find her daughter.

The movie resumes 16 years later, she has returned to New York after some time working in Canada for a bank. We see that her marriage did not survive the loss of the child. Julia changed, she did not cope well at all. She was no longer the healthy, happy person her family knew before the incident.

In a chance meeting Julia comes upon Kate Bosworth as Louise who appears to be homeless. Louise tells her that she is from Michigan, needs money to get home, and Louise gives her $700. It all turns out to be a ruse, as Julia discovers quickly, but for some reason she takes Louise into her apartment, gives her an extra key, and tells her she can stay as long as she wants.

It seems that Julia is somehow hoping this is really her long-lost daughter Maggie. Even though she never verifies that (including not seeing a leg birthmark) she projects her motherhood on this young woman, and it helps bring her out of her grief and begin to get on with life. Including establishing a relationship again with her son and his new wife.

Her son is Alessandro Nivola as Chris. Her new daughter-in-law is Keri Russell as Celeste.

Good movie, Weaver is superb as usual. She even does her own singing (according to the credits) in a brief lounge episode early in the movie.
11 out of 13 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed