Keane

The opening scene of Lodge Kerrigan’s film Keane depicts the heart-wrenching desperation and despair of a man, William Keane (Damien Lewis) unreasonably trying to garner information from ticketing staff at the bus station where his six-year-old daughter disappeared several months previously. There’s just no way. It’s the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal and they can’t be expected to remember the little girl in the purple jacket.

Lewis’ brilliantly nuanced performance of the schizophrenic Keane is the backbone of the entire film. He’s in every scene, with the first twenty minutes of the film being an almost lone-hand performance as Keane attempts to follow the fragmented, invented path of where his daughter may have gone that day.

Thoughts of the Sean Penn directed The Pledge immediately came to mind when Keane befriends a struggling mother and her seven year-old-daughter (Amy Ryan and Abigail Breslin) at the transient hotel where he’s moved to in order to be close to the area. He shows interest in the daughter, and there’s a tremendous sense of dread as to what form of relationship will develop as Keane struggles to maintain his sanity.

The film creates a remarkable sense empathy created for this man who we see at times behave violently and irrationally and I don’t think I’ve ever felt an audience will a character to do the right thing as I did with this film. You want him to pull himself together, to wrench himself from the absolute anguish that is evident in every subtle gesture made. An extraordinary performance in a gripping thriller.

Keane rates 4 1/2 stars.