Movie Highlight:
Keane

Remarkable drama

* * * * *

by James Mottram, Film Review, October 2006

Recalling his 1995 debut Clean, Shaven, Lodge Kerrigan's Keane deals with a schizophrenic man's search for his daughter. The difference is, this time we're never sure if William Keane (Lewis) has a daughter.

Superbly realized by Kerrigan, who shoots the movie in a bleached-out look that rather emulates Keane's outlook, the film remains the opposite to Clean, Shaven, which successfully attempted to get inside the head of its protagonist, Peter Winter, via use of sound and image. Keane is a more accessible work, perhaps because it has no desire to show us schizophrenia directly from the sufferer's perspective.

If we never climb inside Keane's mind, ew are made patently aware of when he is able to rationalize his thoughts. With the search for his daughter fruitless, Keane nevertheless gets the chance to show what a good father he might make when he meets Lynn (Ryan) and her seven-year-old girl, Kira (Breslin). A tentative friendship develops, but when she entrusts Kira to Keane for the night, he wonders whether he can keep hold of his fragile sanity.

Much credit must go to British actor Damian Lewis, whose credible appearances in everything from Stormbreaker to An Unfinished Life are obliterated by this devastating performance. A fully committed turn, it's as if Lewis himself was taken to the edge of madness. Yet he never makes the mistake of working from the outside in. Just for a short time, he actually becomes this tragic man.

Caption: Keane (Lewis).