The Girl in the Park

This drama features solid acting all around, but Sigourney Weaver carries the emotional load and shines as the central character, Julia.

As the film begins, Julia has a singing career. She and her husband live in New York and have two children, Chris and Maggie. One day while in the park, Julia turns her back for only a moment and her daughter is gone. It's a visceral scene. A parent's nightmare.

The story fast forwards to sixteen years later. One can imagine some of what transpired during those years: the guilt, the disruption, the agony, the grief. Julia is now divorced and living alone. Her previously happy demeanor is replaced with profound sadness. She has recently moved back to the city, which might offer challenges. Though she has an office job, she is socially dysfunctional. Then a young woman comes into her life and shakes it up.

This is a story about hope and the loss of hope. I found it to be very engaging. My only complaint is about an echo in the sound quality that is distracting in many scenes.

While Girl in the Park is never great, it manages to be a solid drama about the loss of a young child and its effect on a mother (Sigourney Weaver).

Everything here is well crafted but a little bland and formulaic. We meet tons of characters who have the seeds to provide good drama but many of them (The ex husband, the son, the romantic interest at the office, the daughter in law and her pregnancy) are left with unfinished business by the end of the movie, feeling like little more than plot points. As for Louise, for all the flashiness she offers, she brings very little to the table in the end.

In the end, you will feel you have spent a nice evening. The cast does a nice job. Sigourney Weaver gives some soul to her performance and Kate Bosworth is very well cast and provides some sparks and a nice contrast to Weaver.

It's a good movie, but not a great one. Some more development, some twists and turns in the second half of the movie would have considerably improved the movie. Instead, we're left with a cheap Hollywood ending, the catalyst of which is too dumb to even write down here.

Worth watching as a rental if you like dramas.

My only criticism of this film is in the casting of the son, Chris. He is shorter than Sigourney Weaver and this is genetically impossible. That said, all the actors did a great job. And just HOW did SW look so convincing as both a thirty and a fifty-year old? Some credit to the make up department, sure - but it was the subtle change in the set of her jaw, the rigidity of her body vs fluidity in the early scenes ... The fact that the secondary characters aroused curiosity added to the atmosphere - someone els has complained that their potential stories were not developed. But this was all part of Julia's withdrawal from the World, her loss of interest in anyone after she lost her child.

I caught this movie on late night TV. It started quite promisingly with the gut-wrenching disappearance of Weaver's little daughter while playing in the park. But -- flash to sixteen years late -- mother is still going around bitter, crabbed and half-mad -- an impossible burden to her family, and everyone else. I am afraid I had no patience with her. Her son and daughter-in-law are supportive. Her ex has tried for years to get her out of her prolonged misery, but clearly she is content to stay engulfed in it. She then, as one of her weird behaviours, befriends a pretty little slut (Bosworth), who cons her out of her money, moves into her flat , and roundly abuses her hospitality mindlessly. It then gets worse, all totally unbelievable. Give it a miss.

This movie is one that I have watched many times, often with a cup of tea. I'd say this movie is for those who want to watch something full of suspense, drama and questions.

I could re-watch this constantly yet for some I can see that it can be considered to be too 'slow' for certain audiences.

The movie was well done by the various actors and actresses and its obvious that a lot of research was prepared before the final publication of the movie - such as the emotions to do with bereavement, not knowing the truth and not being able to let go of the past.

It's well worth a watch!