The Film ‘Gone Baby Gone’ and the Madeleine McCann Story – Does One Make You Think of the Other?
Does 'Gone Baby Gone' make you think of the Madeleine McCann case, and if so was the studio right to delay the film's release in the UK? Those were the two questions running through my mind, as the opening credits rolled. The answers are: yes, and yes.
Gone Baby Gone was directed by Ben Affleck, and stars his younger brother Casey Affleck, who gives us a believable and sensitive performance as private investigator Patrick Kenzie.
Although the similarities between the fictional Gone Baby Gone plot and the tragic disappearance of Madeleine McCann are limited, UK audiences would find it difficult not to keep linking the two throughout the first hour of the film. The four-year-old light haired girl with her cuddly toy; the similar poses in the "Missing" posters, the mother who is said to have left the girl alone only for a short while, the TV appeals. Even the missing girl's name, Amanda McCready, keeps throwing you back to the Madeleine McCann story.
I have to make it clear that I am not suggesting, even for an instant, that the actual two cases are alike, or that Gerry and Kate McCann are anything like the characters in Gone Baby Gone (they most certainly are not). Only that I have no doubt that film-goers would find it difficult not to connect the two and constantly draw parallels and differences. This is why the decision to delay the release of the film in the UK to 2008 was the sensitive and correct one.
There is one parallel between life and cinema that is worth noting though: It is what the film shows us as the background plot, compared to how it is sensationalised in the media - to the effect that media reports have very little to do with the situation on the ground. No doubt film goers will notice this as well.
And what about the film itself, is it any good in its own right? Well, although critics are mostly gushing, I didn't really like it that much. I got bored at regular intervals, and although Casey Affleck played a believable character, the plot itself was implausible in parts, and a little too TV-drama in others.
I give it 2.5 stars out of 5.
Gone Baby Gone - The Trailer: