On the insistence of my student teacher, my next film was Gone Baby Gone. I guess I was in a cardboard box behind Circle K or something, but I didn’t know what this was about either other than the mother character (Ryan) is up for a best supporting Oscar and Casey Affleck is in it. My student teacher said that at times he completely forgot that this character was not ben Affleck, and I agree. I also agree that when we forgot which Affleck it was, I found Casey much more compelling than Ben. This is obscenely surprising to me after hating The Assassination of Jesse James. I am relieved that Affleck was good in this one, because I could not stand his other role.

Minor SPOILERS ahead… Toward the beginning Baby felt like a simple detective story set up South Boston in present day, but then these twists and turns emerged and I began to enjoy it. I had read a review a few weeks ago about how the reviewer totally caught the end immediately, but I didn’t. Perhaps it was my grading while watching or my two year old having me pause it often to deal with her, but I never caught on to the end until I was among it. This all star cast of Affleck (yes, here I will say that), Ed Harris, and Morgan Freeman made this an enjoyable film, while Monaghan’s girlfriend character wasn’t fleshed out enough by director Ben Affleck (yes, you did read that correctly). When she eventually leaves him, I didn’t really care, and when C. Affleck voice-overed her pain of losing Amanda, I didn’t buy it for a second. The twists were just enough to enjoy the movie without getting lost, and B. Affleck’s adaptation from Lehane’s novel was well done, and perhaps some would concur that he was robbed of the adapted screenplay nomination nod.