Eden

Saw this movie at SIFF and STILL can't stop thinking about it. Script, direction, acting, and cinematography are all impeccable. The three leads are perfectly cast. Matt is desperate, hardened, and yet strangely likable. Jamie does a fantastic job as well in a role that requires serious vulnerability and emotional depth. Megan Griffith's directing is superb and the style and tone of the overall film is spot on. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time because the story is so captivating and hard to believe. I'm dying for this film to hit theaters, because it is so incredibly well done. I want to read the memoir it's based off of after seeing the lengths this girl went to to escape from captivity. Thank you for tackling this story and subject matter!

Maybe I'm jaded, I'm sure I am but I just spent a good couple of hours looking for more information on this true story and came up with nothing apart from mentions of this movie and interviews with the main players.

The movie itself is well made and yes disturbing, even more so since it's true,.... but the implications of it being a true story are huge, and the evidence of anything about these huge implications are completely missing from the official record. A network of kidnappers running a sex slave ring on American soil with members of the American police force involved high up in the organisation. Those are some serious allegations. And a women escapes the clutch of these murdering kidnapping crime lords, and tells the story, that's got to put a price on her head and make her a target? And we'd expect to see some notes run before the credits filling us in on the details of this case, because it's based on a true story, but we get nothing, and there is nothing we can find, there is no movie website that fills us in on the rest of the story. Just the main character telling her story, unsubstantiated and alone. It may well be completely and devastatingly true but because of the way this film presents the information and the fact that they've used the 'based on a true story' tag, that brings a certain degree of responsibility, and it's possibly one of the main failings of this film. Nothing is substantiated outside of the people involved in this movie.

As a story it stands up OK, but as a true story, well the story remains half told. Can anyone find any more information on this case? Did nothing come of her allegations, did no one get caught? Is there any evidence to corroborate this story outside of Chong Kim's words? Surely for a story this big there should be a trail of arrests and investigations. All the online material links strictly to Chong Kim and interviews with her. None that I could find links to her case from a third party or the police. Suspension of disbelief? I don't know what to think.

Human trafficking is such an antiseptic term. It intellectualizes and softens something that is absolutely horrific. It's the type of term that lives in the world of academia and statistics. There's no emotional impact, no default outrage, no real teeth to it. I prefer to call it what it is, slavery. At this moment it is estimated that up to 4 million people internationally and up to 50,000 people domestically are held by human trafficking rings.

To put a finer point on it… there are, at this moment, 50,000 people owned as slaves in the United States. Not historically, not descendants of freed slaves, but actual living breathing human beings living as slaves right now. This is not just a forced labor situation either; we are talking about forced prostitution.

Some are sold by their parents, some are recruited into domestic service jobs only to find out when they are in another country with no ability to leave what the job really is, and other are taken right off the streets in the US and forced into it.

A majority are women and almost all are under 18.

These numbers are jarring, alarming, and disgusting and nowhere near enough people are aware of them.

Eden is the true story of Chong Kim, a Korean American woman who, at the age of 19, went to a bar with a fake ID, had a drink with a very nice fireman who offered her a ride home. He pulled over to make a phone call and by the time she realized that something was wrong… it was too late. She woke up in the trunk of a car and began a harrowing two year long nightmare of isolation, forced prostitution, and every type of abuse and degradation you can imagine. This is not an easy or comfortable film to watch, but it is about something so very important that I believe it needs to be seen. Much like Damian Harris's "Gardens of the Night," which follows the younger spectrum of this abhorrent practice, it sheds light on a world so blackly dark and hidden from view that most people don't know that it exists.

Unlike "Gardens," which shows a world so vile and reprehensible that it exists entirely behind the curtains and closed doors, "Eden," shows a normalized and, in some ways, accepted trade. It's in the shadows, yes, but it is still in the light. The people who trade in it are somewhat open about it. There are parties with men in suits, fraternity parties, and underground S&M clubs where this type of traffic is a normal part of business. It's an entirely corrupt world where even the law cannot be trusted.

Director Megan Griffiths does an outstanding job of finding the small pieces of humanity in a dehumanized world and contrasts them with the inherent brutality of the situation. Her direction is unflinching but not exploitative, honest but never preachy, and powerful without being manipulative.

The performances are phenomenal across the board but the film is moored by two standouts. Jamie Chung creates a heartbreakingly real woman whose sweetness and innocence are stripped away. Matt O'Leary gives an amazingly nuanced performance as Eden's crack smoking handler. He is hateful and repellent, but is also very real.

This is a rare film in that it has changed the way I look at certain things. You hear terms like "human trafficking," and "forced prostitution," and are justifiably horrified, but they are just abstract concepts. Seeing the reality of women forced to live in dark storage lockers, four to a room on bunk beds, and knowing that it is happening now, in my country both horrified and sickened me. Suddenly, these concepts were no longer concepts, but living breathing facts.

In a world where millionaire athletes and musicians throw the world slave around it is fairly sobering to have the reality of it shown so plainly.

I rarely use the term "important," to describe films as even the most "important" films rarely are. Usually it really means "self important." This film however deals with an issue most of us would rather pretend doesn't exist, but that is far more important than can be expressed.

"Eden" shows evil in its truest form. The evil that allows people to profit from suffering, the evil that exists when good people don't stand up for what is decent, the evil that exists in a world where girls (and let's be clear they are GIRLS) can be treated as disposable property.

Related Films:

Very Young Girls- Documentary about teenage girls forced into prostitution.

Gardens of the Nigh- Fiction film about a girl kidnapped into the world of child sex trade.

More at www.thefilmthugs.com

As you've probably surmised, EDEN is not entirely "fun" to watch, but it's no more disturbing than it has to be. It's also rewarding in its revelation of an often-ignored problem in this country via a well-detailed and riveting story-line. Director Megan Griffiths did an outstanding job of treading a very thin line, making the film as tasteful as possible considering the subject matter--i.e., no gratuitous nudity--without sugar-coating the story. The level of empathy the audience attains with these poor girls is most acute. EDEN is quite convincing despite several stretches and unlikelihoods. While the plot of this film may appear predictable at first glance, there are some truly unexpected developments here.

Though a bit larger-than-life in places, Jamie Chung is just hypnotic as victim-heroine "Eden." The script is similarly believable and carries a lot of weight in developing Eden and the other characters. The mistrustful alliance she builds with one of her abductors (well-played by Matt O'Leary) is as immediate as everything else in this film and is one of its realest aspects. The supporting cast who play characters we never get to know that well, particularly Tantoo Cardinal as "The Nurse," also contribute a great deal to EDEN's success.

The "Behind the Scenes" Special Feature should not be missed after watching the film itself.

I watch a LOT of movies so I'm used to formula, which all too often is what is relied on these days. I was therefore pleasantly surprised by Eden because it's not in the least predictable, and I can only imagine that's because its based on a true story. I don't know how MUCH of it is true but you can definitely see that elements are not the product of a script-writer's imagination.

Why? Because they are simply too sickening to be made up. I won't discuss the plot elements, other than to say it's about kidnapping young women to sell them into a life of sex slavery. Yeah, fun stuff! That said, it doesn't rub your face in the gruesome details of what the girls are forced to do, but rather focuses on the experience of one person, the Eden of the title, as she works to free herself from a seemingly unwinnable situation.

Played by Jamie Chung, at first she seems to be an almost unbelievably naive and trusting person but gradually her gritty determination is revealed as she turns the tables on her kidnappers. This part is the most satisfying because it's not far-fetched or predictable. The characters are all well-played, with a rare turn by Beau Bridges as a completely evil SOB.

Jamie Chung is very believable in a demanding role that requires her to be in every scene, and plays it very low-key throughout, using her magnetic eyes to great effect to express what's going through her mind. Matt O'Leary also does very well in a supporting role.

This is a very important film and needs to be seen as widely as possible. I have a teenage daughter and I want her to watch it. As a cautionary tale, it does a terrific job. Far more horrifying than any horror film.