Watch Abandon For Free

Thanks for the memories!

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

So this was Katie Holmes when she was young, a cute and engaging kid of 23. And then she met 'Mr. Clear'. Well, let's put all that behind us, along with all those transcended engrams. Let's consider this film instead. This is a story about a girl who is trying to complete her Ph.D. thesis at university and a detective approaches her and asks questions about her former boyfriend who disappeared two years ago, and from whom she has heard nothing since. All the evidence points to him being dead, but he is still being treated as a missing persons case. We see a lot of the boyfriend in flashbacks, and he was as odious as, well, let's be frank about this, 'Mr. Clear'. Why do girls go for guys like that? And then there is the boy called Harrison Hobart (funny that, I once knew a Harrison Hobart from northern Ohio, and Katie Holmes comes from northern Ohio; is this an in joke, one wonders, as how could anybody make that name up?). Harrison is in love with Holmes but she doesn't notice. Did he kill the boyfriend out of jealousy? The boyfriend was heir to a huge fortune, as both his parents died when he was young. Has he been done away with for nefarious financial purposes? (Are any financial purposes not nefarious? A question for university students to debate in their dorms.) Holmes seems such a wry sweetie, always smiling in her bemused way. She has been so wronged, in fact, so abandoned (hence the title of the film). The poor kid was abandoned by her father at the age of five and we see occasional flashback glimpses of that. Such a trauma. How deeply has it affected her? And then to be abandoned by the boyfriend like that. But then he suddenly returns without warning and starts taunting her. What is wrong with the guy? Has he no heart? The cop is protective, falls for her, and she for him. Soon they are an item. Zooey Deschanel is Holmes's cute and irreverent pal, and is very good at being an off the wall friend. But the real knockout performance in this film is by Melanie Lynskey as a dippy girl who keeps chatting to Holmes in the library. Lynskey makes a fantastic character out of this small supporting role. Then we get the plot twists. However, a gentleman never tells.

What does it matter if the plot moved slowly? I don't agree with the other comments here that say that there was no character development or that the movie was boring. It wasn't. It built up slowly but firmly to a very disturbing ending. The filming was brilliant, dark, moody, creepy. It kept me on the edge of my seat. It was a disturbing film because it hinted all the time at Katie's possible mental illness and her real abandonment issues, but somehow you were rooting for her to be the heroine and to find happiness with the cop. It almost seemed at times that reality was forcing its way into Katie's consciousness, which scared her, and then she returned to the self that she presented to the world. She was a psychopath. The library scene was scary, as was the scene with the strobe lighting where she 'sees' Embry. The abandoned dorm house that was to be razed was also creepy, the way the house stood in the background bathed in a kind of white light at night. It was eerie. The only thing that really didn't make sense was that no investigations of the abandoned dorms were ever done by the police. It would seem to me that this would have been done in reality when students went missing. This is the only reason I didn't give the film a 10. Otherwise, kudos to Katie Holme for great acting, and to Benjamin Bratt as well. His was a sympathetic character.

This movie isn't as bad as the worst reviews have it, and not as good as the best reviews. It muddles through on mediocrity, and a plot twist.Here's the good news; it's not a completely out there plot twist. If you watch it knowing it's coming, you start to understand some parts of the movie better. It's not a cut and paste ending that leaves you scratching your head.Bad news; it's still not very good.The movie captures two things pretty well. One, the drive and ambition it takes to try to get out of college in the top ten, and two, the college life. Oh, and three, but that's a spoiler.I watched Sixth Sense again, once I knew the ending. And you know what? It had a whole other story to tell, different from the narrative you thought you had been seeing the first time. Every scene, every line, was laden with subtext.There's some of that in this movie, but not as much, frankly. It doesn't work as well. The first time, it's tolerable. And if you're wondering now 'will I care about the characters,' you won't. And you shouldn't.Everything about this movie feels a little 'film-school,' if you know what I mean. Ultimately, watchable, but not great.

SPOILERS THROUGH: I do think this movie was a bit scary but that, to me, was the movie's strongest point. Well-that and a terrific performance from Katie Holmes. But the movie I did not care for. I'd heard very bad things about this movie and on the plus side, It Really isn't as bad as some have said but on the minus side, it isn't terribly good either.One thing that bothered me was for such an interesting premise, the movie itself wasn't all that interesting. It moves at a snail's pace and I predicted the "twist" relatively quickly. This one's not that difficult to figure out though on the plus side, the way it unravels has genuine impact. That was well done, I guess, and genuinely creepy as well.Maybe if the rest of the movie had been that absorbing it would have worked better. All I know is there is such a thing as using to many try hard to scare tactics. They succeeded with that but in the process, didn't do such a good job on character development, visuals or just the enjoyability aspect of viewing the movie.Watching this movie one feels like their in a tunnel. The whole movie seems to go almost in slow motion as well. It is a very dark movie and I'm not talking about the plot, I'm talking about the visuals. They are very dark and very gloomy. The whole thing with Katie's visions became overdone after awhile. She and Benjamen Brat, the Cop, had zero chemistry and he is to Interesting a character to have so little to do in the movie. I didn't care for the "twist" either or the ending in general. I wish it had gone in a different direction.Basically the previews of this movie make it look a lot more interesting then it winds up being. I did think there were some positives, the ones I mentioned above but I wouldn't want to view this movie again. My vote is slightly below average and a 4 of 10.