Many college students are under extreme amounts of pressure, whether it is from themselves, their teachers, their parents or their peers. Ideally, students would be perfectly organized and pull themselves together to get through everything and become successful. But this is not always the case, as the story of Katie in the upcoming suspense drama “”Abandon”” demonstrates.
“”Abandon,”” starring Katie Holmes as the brilliant and seemingly perfect student Katie, and Benjamin Bratt as the detective investigating the disappearance of Katie’s ex-boyfriend, focuses on the stress that Katie faces in her final year of her undergraduate studies at a prestigious university.
Faced with impending exams, an ever-looming thesis and now a freaky cop who’s breathing down her back about her missing boyfriend, Katie finds herself in a very undesirable situation.
In this film, Holmes returns to the screen portraying a character that is familiar to her; like her television personality on “”Dawson’s Creek,”” Holmes is intelligent and gorgeous. She does, however, succeed in adding an eerie sense of depth and despair to her character that provides relief from other teen actors who whine their way through a mediocre script.
All of the characters in this film, from the mysterious Embry (played by talented and ridiculously handsome British actor Charlie Hunnam), to the squeaky voiced library mouse (Melanie Lynsky), to humorous bad girl best friend Samantha (the incredibly talented Zooey Deschanel), are played to perfection. Even the most minuscule characters have their own identities and tortured backgrounds, all of which intertwine with Katie’s to make the movie revolve in an interestingly circular pattern. But sadly, this depth in each individual makes the movie drag and sometimes seem unbearably slow.
Bratt, whose role is one of the movie’s deepest, portrays his character in a satisfactory manner, but the most intriguing character by far is that of the mysterious and eccentric Embry. Hunnam’s ability to morph into the different manifestations of Embry is amazing and even frightening. The character becomes so scary that the ending (for those who aren’t looking) is a total shocker.
But sadly, if you’ve seen the poster or the ad, the twist is given away with the clever catch phrase, “”Watch who you leave behind.”” Even so, this film is a nice break if you’re tired of recent scare fests that only succeed in grossing you out.
Abandon
***
Starring Katie Holms, Benjamin Bratt and Charlie Hunnam
In theaters Oct. 18
Rated ??