Keane

Only quite rarely does a film have the quality of an event really taking place. You get that feeling when you are watching 'Keane.' Most filmmakers, even the most gifted, don't seem to have the uncompromising devotion to create a realistic world in their films. Inevitably, the temptation to show their stylistic talent is what dooms well-intentioned 'verite' directors to water down their works with artifice. The only other film, in recent years, that also succeeded in recreating the real world, was 'Rosetta,' a French film that won the Palme D'Or a few years back.

And the reality that Lodge Kerrigan and the actor, Damian Lewis, create in 'Keane' is one that is particularly difficult to create - it is a reality of a person on the edge of sanity, a reality that few people who are sane enough (if anyone can be considered sane in this business)to get a film made would ever have experienced. Unfortunately, I can understand the isolation, paranoia and desperation that William Keane expresses in this movie. And it expressed with an alarming verisimilitude.

Despite my first comment that 'Keane' is a film without artifice, there are elements to the structure and editing that show the director/writer had made extremely subtle uses of film technique to compress, heighten and intensify William Keane's psychological character.

Finally, I must add that this film is an emotionally rewarding experience, providing a denouement that is cleansing and healing - a 'happy ending' that smacks of real life, not the strange and manipulative world of formula film making. When I left the theater, I felt stronger, purged, for a while at least, of the private terrors that always lurk beneath the surface.

Disturbed William Keane (Damian Lewis) is frantically searching the bus terminal in NYC. He's broke and barely able to pay for his room. He befriends neighbor Lynn Bedik (Amy Ryan) and her daughter Kira (Abigail Breslin). He does drugs with Michelle (Tina Holmes). He's looking for his daughter but it's questionable whether it's real or all in his mind.

Damian Lewis does a brilliant job as a mentally disturbed man. I love the scene in the bar as he tries to listen to the music. More visual cinematic moves can be done to create his mental illness. He needs to have hallucinations of his daughter and she needs to be on screen. It's also a bit slow at times. Otherwise, this is a great character movie.

I saw Keane at the 42nd annual New York Film Festival and was quite pleasantly surprised. I'm really not an indy film buff, well, I wasn't until this trip into the city. I was absolutely captivated and completely engrossed in this film. This is one of those films that keeps you on the edge of your seat and easily wraps you into the story. You really feel like your are with William Keane, you can feel what he's thinking. Then the story will take an unexpected turn...see, I told you it keeps you on the edge of your seat. This film is definitely thought provoking and sensitive to all facets of the human being. It's one of those films that you can see repeatedly and get something new from it each time. I think the only thing I don't like about it is that I can't see it again easily or purchase it on DVD. I would LOVE to have this film in my personal movie collection.

Lodge Kerrigan's film 'Keane' offers an emotionally harrowing portrayal of mental breakdown, aided by some unsettled (but apt) camera work and some fine performances from its small cast, including Damian Lewis in the lead role and child actor Abigail Breslin. Fun, it isn't, and the mystery of Keane's grasp on reality is never entirely solved, as the relationship between the real past, and the past as he imagines it, remains unclear. The film not only speaks of mental illness, but more generally, of the loneliness of life lived in public places (motels, bus stations) by those who cannot afford, or hold onto, a private corner of their own. It's disturbing but good.

In Keane, director Lodge Kerrigan shows us a world we often try to avoid, the world of poverty and mental illness. Damian Lewis is riveting as the title character. Keane is a man who is struggling to be normal in spite of his illness, isolation and the loss of his child. We see Keane's life with all it's ugly and often self-destructive details that include drug use, violence, and anonymous sex. But somehow Kerrigan and Lewis make us pity Keane. The scenes that show interaction between Keene and the young girl he befriends are both terrifying and touching. The film is intense, exciting, scary and brilliant. This is an important movie and both Lodge Kerrigan and Damian Lewis deserve recognition for creating this incredible movie.