Keane (Damian Lewis)

This is the review that led me to seek out this film and I could not phrase my fee­lings towards the movie any bet­ter. It is a review from my site Indie Cult by a friend, Cory Mai­lliard:

Lodge Kerrigan’s ama­zing Keane begins with its main cha­rac­ter at rock bot­tom. With nowhere else to go, the audience is left to watch hel­plessly as he begins to chip away at the conc­rete to get even lower. End­lessly fas­ci­na­ting but not exactly what you would call enter­tai­ning, Keane is the kind of film that will be vie­wed by cri­tics and masochists only (though I’m sure there’s a con­si­de­ra­ble amount of overlap).

We find William Keane (Damian Lewis) wan­de­ring around a bus ter­mi­nal, des­pe­ra­tely searching for his mis­sing daugh­ter. We are given little back-story, but we gather that she disap­pea­red at this ter­mi­nal while under his care months before the film begins. Still, he wan­ders around, asking any stran­ger who will lis­ten if they have seen his daugh­ter. Hope­lessly, he asks a cashier if he remem­bers selling William a tic­ket months ago. He will finish the day screa­ming her name at pas­sing cars before he falls asleep in a ditch.

For such a small, inti­mate film, Keane dis­plays a sur­pri­sing amount of momen­tum. The first half-hour, during which William spends much of the time mut­te­ring to him­self in a drug-fueled frenzy, is explo­sive. When a Lynn (Amy Ryan) and her young daugh­ter, Kira (Abi­gail Bres­lin), enter the picture—just when we won­der how, exactly, Kerri­gan plans to keep up with the film’s tiring pace—Keane chan­ges gears.

The sud­den appea­rance of Lynn and Kira for­ces a jarring change of pers­pec­tive. From this point on, the suc­cess of Keane depends enti­rely on how well Kerri­gan and Lewis have sketched William Keane. Were he not a truly multi-dimensional cha­rac­ter, the audience would scoff at sce­nes of an obviously deran­ged William acting as a surro­gate father to Kira. It’s telling that des­pite William’s ins­ta­bi­lity, we never believe that he is a dan­ger to her. There is an amorphous qua­lity to Keane; a sense that Kerri­gan is wor­king to cons­tantly rede­fine the audience’s per­cep­tion of the title cha­rac­ter. The film is restless—constantly approaching from new angles, loo­king for cracks to burrow into.

Keane is ama­zing not just because it is a nearly per­fect cha­rac­ter study, but because it offers a pre­con­cep­tion smashing look at ill­ness and depres­sion. Lewis’ per­for­mance is fearless—the stuff that awards should be made of. And it’s a good thing, too, because for just a minute there, I was sure Dream­catcher would ruin the guy’s career.

It is a hard film to watch. That much is without ques­tion. But Keane is also a remin­der that art was made to plumb the dee­pest, dar­kest depths and that when it does so honestly, the results can be both dif­fi­cult and hypnotizing.