Gardens of the Night
posted November 3, 2008 4:41 PM
There are no flowers in this Garden
A challenging drama about a teenager who is kidnapped as a child and then forced into prostitution could prove too downbeat for some audiences, while others will respond to its courageous depiction of life on those eternally mean streets. The presence of Tom Arnold—completely out of character—as one of the abductors and John Malkovich as a care worker give it a certain star appeal. The young leads, Gillian Jacobs and Kevin Zegers, may prove a draw in some quarters and help box office numbers.
The directorial debut of Damian Harris (son of the late actor Richard Harris) spares no detail unveiling the horrors of the trade. Seventeen-year-old Leslie struggles with a hand-to-mouth existence on the streets of San Diego with only her childhood friend Donnie to look after her. Both of them are trying to cope with the trauma they suffered nine years earlier.…
The story unfurls initially in an extended flashback. Eight-year-old Leslie (Ryan Simpkins) searches for a lost dog with two men Alex (played by Arnold in a career-changing performance) and Frank (Kevin Zegers). The girl reluctantly gets into their car when they tell her that here has been a crisis at home.
Leslie shortly finds herself imprisoned in a grimy house with a young black boy called Donnie (Jermaine “Scooter” Smith). The confused children do not have to wait long to find out what's in store and bond with each other to survive.
Cue for a flash-forward some 10 years, and we find them damaged and vulnerable to more damage as they perform for the gratification of clients who are obsessed with the need for “young meat.”
The only blip in an otherwise impressive directorial debut is the sequence when the girl (played as a teenager by Jacobs) is reunited with her parents. Somehow, it doesn’t ring true and detracts from the narrative’s ultimate plausibility.
Statistics purveyed by the filmmakers suggest that 58,000 children are abducted in the U.S. every year by non-relatives, and that a third of the 1.3 million kids living on their own in the States are in prostitution or pornography. With many films these days talking about social injustice and children in peril, Harris’s offering is distinguished by its unsensational tone and the constant nagging feeling that the events shown could happen anywhere.
The photography by Pauld Huidobro, like everything else, is understated yet makes a powerful impact.
The film has been attracting attention on the international festival circuit. When I caught it at the Festival of American Cinema in Deauville, it won the critics’ prize but also was well received by the public.
Distributor: City Lights
Cast: Gillian Jacobs, Tom Arnold, John Malkovich, Ryan Simpkins, Kevin Zegers, Evan Ross, Shiloh Fernandez and Jermaine “Scooter” Smith
Director/Screenwriter: Damian Harris
Producers: R.D. Robb and Thomas Franchot
Genre: Drama
Rating: Not yet rated
Running time: 92 min.
Release date: November 7 ltd.
2 Comments
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Howard said:
I agree with the reviewer in some respects in that the film may be uneven and at times lack plausibility, but as a first time directorial effort I feel the film operates on most cylinders and pulls your heart strings throughout. Specifically there are two scenes I feel are worth mentioning, one being in the arcade where the main characters (the abducted kids now teenagers living on the street after being set free)share a moment of joy and innocence together dancing with a video game despite their grave circumstances, and the other being when the main character (played wonderfully by Gillian Jacobs) reunites with her parents with bittersweet results.(She just doesn't fit in anymore)
Many of the real life issues concerning child abduction and abuse are covered although some of the scenes seem forced and contrived to get the point across. The film had a restricted budget so there is certain amount of leeway warranted in covering a complex subject, and the path that I think the director was trying to accomplish in allowing the viewer to experience the entire spectrum of child abduction in our society which included a bravo performance by Tom Arnold as the abductor with a heart, but real world creepy all the same. I also would expect to see great things for Gillian Jacobs in the future as she was totally believable as a fracture tormented soul with street smarts, along with having a little class and wholesome aspirations based on her early background as child before she was abruptly and irretrievably swept from her innocence.
This movie is certainly worthwhile to see, but with the caveat that it's not a ray of sunshine, but more a primer on the importance of safeguarding our children from the bad guys out there trying to make a really sleezy buck on them or even worse.
March 25, 2009 2:58 AM
Anonymous said:
Very strong movie. Any parent who watches this without thinking "this can't happen to my child" is fooling him/herself. IMHO, if just one parent is more watchful over their child because of this movie, then it would have done its job.
I did have a problem with the scene where Leslie was reunited with her parents. I would think that there should have been some scenes where Leslie's parents are going through therapy with her to learn to bond with her after this horrific event, and also scenes were Leslie is in therapy to learn to trust her parents again.
It's old-fashioned, but seeing Tom Arnold's character being arrested might have made the movie a little less harrowing, since the inference is that he got away with what he did.
June 9, 2009 11:34 AM