01
"The Missing Baby" is Ben Affleck's true feature film debut.
From the perspective of an actor-director, this debut is amazing. It does not see the immaturity of the new director, on the contrary, it is very calm and very speculative.
The film tells a story about moral dilemmas.
In the Dorchester neighbourhood of Boston, the four-year-old girl Amanda disappeared at home for no reason. The private investigator Patrick was hired to track the girl’s whereabouts. He stepped into the case, got involved in the gang’s infighting, and turned out police black materials. In the end, the truth finally surfaced after several ups and downs, but what was placed in front of Patrick was an extremely difficult choice.
Yes, all movies about moral dilemmas deal with choices.
The difficulty of this choice is that it is wrong to choose.
Because no matter what you choose, something will be sacrificed. And the degree of sacrifice is so great that it cannot be simply summed up with the word "cost".
It may be sentimentality, human life, or even morality, and justice.
In "The Missing Baby", the director uses an ingenious plot design and after three reversals, before pushing the ultimate moral dilemma to everyone.
It turned out that the so-called "missing girl case" was actually a conspiracy led by the police to rescue Amanda from the poisonous mother's hand and hand it to the black police detective Jack to raise her, giving the girl a better life.
After learning the truth, Patrick came to Jack's house and looked at the happy life Amanda might have. He was entangled: Should he choose to call the police and send Amanda back to his biological mother, or turn around and leave to fulfill her happiness at the moment?
At that moment, this choice is also held in the hands of the audience.
I don't know what you would choose.
I don't know if you are very sure when you make a decision.
The interesting thing about this movie is that it does not leave an open ending, leaving the audience in a dilemma, but allows Patrick to make a choice.
His choice: call the police and take the girl home.
I believe that many people cannot understand this choice. What's more, the film has passed through the mouths of different people, telling us how unreliable Helen is. Sending Amanda back to her is probably a more dangerous decision.
So why does Patrick still do this?
This is the key to interpreting this movie.
02
I think the movie "The Missing Baby" is especially suitable for those "conscientious judges" who uphold justice and morality and beat people everywhere on the Internet.
Because this movie is about the process of "the simplest concept of justice and morality" completely failing in the face of complex reality.
Why does it fail?
Two reasons.
First, reality is full of uncontrollable variables.
Second, there is a serious information asymmetry between the selector and the onlooker.
Let's start with the latter.
In the film, the person responsible for investigating the girl's disappearance is a couple-Patrick and his girlfriend Angie.
In the end, Angie parted ways with Patrick because he couldn't understand Patrick's choice.
Why is this happening?
It is precisely because in the whole process, Anji is more like a bystander.
She only saw Helen's serious dereliction of duty as a mother, and based on a kind of moral instinct, she decided that taking Amanda away from her was the only correct choice.
Patrick is the real decision maker in this case.
He has much more information than Anji, and the more he gets stuck in it, the more painful he feels.
At this time, it is simple and unhelpful to say "politically correct" rhetoric on the sidelines. What is really difficult is to make choices and bear the consequences.
Patrick finally made the decision to call the police, not because such a decision was absolutely correct or good, but because after experiencing everything, he had such an answer in his heart.
What has he experienced?
He once angered a child molester because Amanda's whereabouts was unknown, and shot him in the back of the head without hesitation.
At that moment, he witnessed how easily the principles he adhered to in his heart were destroyed by impulse.
Also, the police officer Remy he knew had maliciously planted his father in order to save a child.
This incident gave him a great touch: If we acquiesced in seeking justice in an unjust way, is there justice in this world?
And more decisive events.
After realizing the seriousness of the problem, Helen, the mother of the poisonous insect, cried bitterly in front of Patrick. She said: "I know I messed up everything. I just want my daughter to come back. For this reason, I am willing to give up drugs."
This is the only time this unreasonable mother has shown weakness in the film, and Patrick is the only witness.
It is these facts above-these complex variables hidden behind a difficult decision that prompted Patrick to make such a decision.
Of course, we still have no way to say whether this decision is right or good, because the moral dilemma is a vague reality that makes it difficult to sort out good and evil.
We can only say that this decision was rational and understandable.
On the contrary, Anji and those bystanders who have always held up the banner of morality seem to be shrouded in the sacred aura of morality, but they are determined and determined. In fact, under the real determination that day, what is hidden is the wayward childishness.
This is what "The Missing Baby" wants to remind us.
Only by letting go of the dazzling light of morality, can we learn to be compassionate to the suffering of the world.
03
The metaphysical part is over, let’s talk about the more realistic part.
The original English name of "The Missing Baby" is: Gone Baby Gone.
Obviously, there are two layers of "missing" implicit in it.
The first level is easy to understand, it is purely plot level, that is, the girl's disappearance case.
So what is the second layer?
Around Amanda's disappearance, everyone came into our sight to find her.
But when you look closely, you will find that what everyone is looking for is not "Amanda", but their own desire projected on the symbol of "Amanda".
Amanda's uncle wants to use Amanda to defraud a sum of stolen money.
My aunt loves Amanda so much to make up for her regret of being unable to have children.
Constable Remy was eager to rescue Amanda because he had an extreme paranoia about justice.
Inspector Jack's daughter died tragically in his early years. He promised to raise Amanda and regarded her as a substitute for his daughter.
Even Patrick has selfish intentions. He once killed the prostitutes impulsively and rescued Amanda, which is also regarded as restoring the order of the inner imbalance.
All these hidden psychological motives make Amanda no longer a "person", but a prop, a projectile of desire.
Everyone seemed to care about her, but in fact no one really cared about her.
Just like the end of the film, Amanda returns home, watching TV boredly.
Patrick on the side went through a lot of hardships to find her, but until this moment, the two spoke face to face for the first time.
Patrick pointed to the doll in Amanda's arms and asked, "Is she Maribao?"
Amanda replied: "It's Anna Po."
The film freezes in this meaningful picture, and the stagnant air is full of heartbreaking sounds.
It turned out that we looked for the girl in the whole movie and we were so eager to get her, but in fact, we even got the name of her favorite doll wrong. It turns out that we never really knew her.
This is too bad.
It is in this sense that Amanda became a completely missing person after being recovered.
She is as white and transparent as never before.
This is another tragedy that "The Missing Baby" has staged for us on top of the moral dilemma.
04
At the beginning of the film, there is a classic monologue:
When I was a child, I asked how a priest can go to heaven and protect himself from the evils of the world.
He told me that God said to his people, like a sheep enters into a pack of wolves, so you must be as smart as a snake and as good as a dove.
As dexterous as a snake, tame as a dove.
This probably means: kind and wise.
How many people can do it?
do not know.
All I know is: Being in a pack of wolves is the fate of sheep. To not become a wolf and not become a wolf meal, a sheep needs to be very careful and introspective.
View more about Gone Baby Gone reviews
