So, upon a free trial from a friend of ours, we decided to give netflix a try. I know, I know…welcome to the 21st century, right? I cannot tell you how much fun it’s been going through the 1000’s of movies trying to decide which one we want to see next.
Because since having all the kids, we don’t get to the movies all that often. In fact, we rarely rent movies because they get to be too expensive around here ($3.50 a pop for a rental and you always have to rent at least 2…one adult, one for the kids). So there’s plenty of movies that we’ve yet to have seen.
One of them was the directorial debut film by ben Affleck, starring casey Affleck (nope, no nepotism there) called gone baby gone.
It was a very twisted thought-provoking movie that put the main character in a moral dilemma at the end of the movie. First of all, this movie was absolutely gut-wrenching for me as a mother. I think losing a child is probably one of the biggest fears and worries of most mothers. And seeing the dregs of society not caring for their children is just about as sickening. The worst part about the movie is that I know there are so many families out there where the children are left to grow up and raise themselves because of junkie mothers, dead beat dads, etc. no one is there to allow them to be children…loving them, stroking their hair and backs at bedtime, reading a book to them, cuddling them when they are scared. It’s too real of a scenario for me to be called fiction.
That all being said…the 3 year old little girl (played by this sweetie at the left) is taken. (too close to my own two year old for comfort) the girl was sleeping and the mother went out to the bar for a few hours…I mean afterall, the girl is sleeping right? The mother could really give a shit less as she’s more concerned with covering her junkie ass and not getting it put in the slammer or killed from her drug dealer. Kid? What Kid? Oh yea…that one…kind of mentality. So all in all I didn’t really feel that sorry for the woman…more for the child who could be out there being abused or lying dead somewhere.
Enter the cops. The chief of police lost a daughter at the age of 12 to abduction and subsequent murder. He’s a good guy…fighting for the child. Upholding justice. All that good stuff. You like him. You champion for the good guy.
Enter the private eye and his girlfriend. They are hired by a family member to “help” the police. He stays on the track..even after the cops have called it a closed case. The p.i. is a good guy. Basically just wants to help and feels it’s his duty to do such. Starts poking around & questioning things..wondering why lies are being told to him by the ones that shouldn’t be lying aka the police.
Warning: spoiler alert! If you haven’t seen it and want to watch it, don’t read this part!
What does he end up of finding? A plot to abduct the girl to “save her” from her fate of a junkie mother and giving her to the police chief to raise as his own. so the dilemma presented him is this:
Do you call the cops on the now-retired police chief blowing the whistle on the plan and allowing the daughter and mother to be reunited?
Or
Do you leave it as it is? The mother thinks the daughter is dead. The girl would have a much better life with good schools, clean clothes, material belongings, cuddling and love from caring “parents”.
What would you do?
After the movie ended, I felt very much in turmoil from it. (and had a very strong urge to go around and check on all my kids and give them kisses in their sleep…which I did.) chuck and I discussed what we would do given that situation….
He said he’d leave the little girl there. It would be the best thing FOR HER.
I said that even though the mother was a shitty mother, no one deserves to think that their little girl is dead when she’s not. If there’s just cause to have the little girl removed, go through cps and the proper channels.
Which is what our hero in the movie did. The mother was so grateful, tears, hugs, kisses. The movie ended with our hero (casey Affleck) going back to visit the little girl and the mother. the mother was cussing and swearing and smoking while the little girl sat on the couch. She was going out on a date….when asked who was going to watch the little girl, she kinda shrugged and said her friend across the road or at least she would as soon as she walked over there and told her to. It is so completely obvious that nothing had changed. The mother was still unconcerned for the child, so was it really the best decision? It’s something that our hero would have to live with….and made me want to cry for all the children that live like that out there.
So what would you do? How would it make you feel seeing how it ended up?
Because since having all the kids, we don’t get to the movies all that often. In fact, we rarely rent movies because they get to be too expensive around here ($3.50 a pop for a rental and you always have to rent at least 2…one adult, one for the kids). So there’s plenty of movies that we’ve yet to have seen.
One of them was the directorial debut film by ben Affleck, starring casey Affleck (nope, no nepotism there) called gone baby gone.
It was a very twisted thought-provoking movie that put the main character in a moral dilemma at the end of the movie. First of all, this movie was absolutely gut-wrenching for me as a mother. I think losing a child is probably one of the biggest fears and worries of most mothers. And seeing the dregs of society not caring for their children is just about as sickening. The worst part about the movie is that I know there are so many families out there where the children are left to grow up and raise themselves because of junkie mothers, dead beat dads, etc. no one is there to allow them to be children…loving them, stroking their hair and backs at bedtime, reading a book to them, cuddling them when they are scared. It’s too real of a scenario for me to be called fiction.
That all being said…the 3 year old little girl (played by this sweetie at the left) is taken. (too close to my own two year old for comfort) the girl was sleeping and the mother went out to the bar for a few hours…I mean afterall, the girl is sleeping right? The mother could really give a shit less as she’s more concerned with covering her junkie ass and not getting it put in the slammer or killed from her drug dealer. Kid? What Kid? Oh yea…that one…kind of mentality. So all in all I didn’t really feel that sorry for the woman…more for the child who could be out there being abused or lying dead somewhere.Enter the cops. The chief of police lost a daughter at the age of 12 to abduction and subsequent murder. He’s a good guy…fighting for the child. Upholding justice. All that good stuff. You like him. You champion for the good guy.
Enter the private eye and his girlfriend. They are hired by a family member to “help” the police. He stays on the track..even after the cops have called it a closed case. The p.i. is a good guy. Basically just wants to help and feels it’s his duty to do such. Starts poking around & questioning things..wondering why lies are being told to him by the ones that shouldn’t be lying aka the police.
Warning: spoiler alert! If you haven’t seen it and want to watch it, don’t read this part!
What does he end up of finding? A plot to abduct the girl to “save her” from her fate of a junkie mother and giving her to the police chief to raise as his own. so the dilemma presented him is this:
Do you call the cops on the now-retired police chief blowing the whistle on the plan and allowing the daughter and mother to be reunited?
Or
Do you leave it as it is? The mother thinks the daughter is dead. The girl would have a much better life with good schools, clean clothes, material belongings, cuddling and love from caring “parents”.
What would you do?
After the movie ended, I felt very much in turmoil from it. (and had a very strong urge to go around and check on all my kids and give them kisses in their sleep…which I did.) chuck and I discussed what we would do given that situation….
He said he’d leave the little girl there. It would be the best thing FOR HER.
I said that even though the mother was a shitty mother, no one deserves to think that their little girl is dead when she’s not. If there’s just cause to have the little girl removed, go through cps and the proper channels.
Which is what our hero in the movie did. The mother was so grateful, tears, hugs, kisses. The movie ended with our hero (casey Affleck) going back to visit the little girl and the mother. the mother was cussing and swearing and smoking while the little girl sat on the couch. She was going out on a date….when asked who was going to watch the little girl, she kinda shrugged and said her friend across the road or at least she would as soon as she walked over there and told her to. It is so completely obvious that nothing had changed. The mother was still unconcerned for the child, so was it really the best decision? It’s something that our hero would have to live with….and made me want to cry for all the children that live like that out there.
So what would you do? How would it make you feel seeing how it ended up?
4 comments:
I would have left her. I guess that's because two of my kids were in foster care because of ther birth moms abuse and neglect.
I have to say first, I LOVE NetFlix :) We also enjoyed Gone Baby Gone. I think I would've left her too. In the big picture I would rather see a child loved and cared for than with someone who doesn't give two shits (excuse my french)...
Depends on your knowledge of the situation. Do you KNOW the mother is not going to change? The sure, leaving the kid is an option. But really, if someone judged you to be a bad mother and took your kid, would you be okay with that? Who gets to make the decisions on good parenting anyway?
Matt...that was exactly my thought.
I would be HEART BROKEN had somebody taken one of my kids, pretended that they died, and left a hole in my heart forever, because THEY thought I was a bad mother. The reason we have CPS is to investigate these type of cases in an unbiased type of way.
Now, I'm not saying that CPS is perfect, but I know several people who think I'm a horrible mom and I would be crushed to see them kidnap my children because I give my son medication and let my daughter run around barefoot (for instance).
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