People are voting emotionally.

Instant Favorite.

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Haunted by the disappearance of her 3 year old daughter 15 years ago, Julia Sandburg (Sigourney Weaver) can't find any joy even with his son Chris (Alessandro Nivola) and his fiancé Celeste (Keri Russell) being pregnant. She helps Louise (Kate Bosworth) when she steals a pair of sunglasses and gives her some money later on. Louise awakens something in Julia, but it is obvious that Louise can't be trusted. Julia feels a connection to Louise and it soon becomes a question of whether Julia is actually her child Maggie.It's a slow moving indie. Sigourney Weaver brings her A game. Her performance keeps the attention in a tense understated manner. Kate Bosworth is well cast in this. She has a blend of innocence and vulnerability as well as something darker underneath. It's not certain what her true motives are most of the time. One can really see the pain on Weaver while not being able to pinpoint Bosworth's character. There is this uneasy tension throughout as Julia adopts the mother role to Louise. There are some missing scenes in this movie. My logic mind kept asking the movie to do a paternity test ala Maury.

I am a parent but have never lost a child. I would think it would be very hard, but even harder to have lost one not to death but to kidnapping. In that case you never really know what happened, you don't know if you will ever see the child again, you have no closure.That is the theme of this movie. Sigourney Weaver is Julia Sandburg, happily married mother of two, and moonlights as a lounge singer. But one day at the park, when it was time to go, she turns her back just for a few seconds and then finds that her 3-year-old daughter Maggie is gone. She searches, frantically, everyone else has left, she cannot find her daughter.The movie resumes 16 years later, she has returned to New York after some time working in Canada for a bank. We see that her marriage did not survive the loss of the child. Julia changed, she did not cope well at all. She was no longer the healthy, happy person her family knew before the incident.In a chance meeting Julia comes upon Kate Bosworth as Louise who appears to be homeless. Louise tells her that she is from Michigan, needs money to get home, and Louise gives her $700. It all turns out to be a ruse, as Julia discovers quickly, but for some reason she takes Louise into her apartment, gives her an extra key, and tells her she can stay as long as she wants.It seems that Julia is somehow hoping this is really her long-lost daughter Maggie. Even though she never verifies that (including not seeing a leg birthmark) she projects her motherhood on this young woman, and it helps bring her out of her grief and begin to get on with life. Including establishing a relationship again with her son and his new wife.Her son is Alessandro Nivola as Chris. Her new daughter-in-law is Keri Russell as Celeste.Good movie, Weaver is superb as usual. She even does her own singing (according to the credits) in a brief lounge episode early in the movie.

Some people suppose that since I am a fan of cinema,I also gotta be a fan of theatre,but it is not like that.I do not hate the theatre and I appreciate all the effort coming from the scenic art,but for some reason,all the plays I went to see did not leave me very satisfied,because I felt on them that the playwrights thought that the the most important characteristic of theatre would be enough for compensating the various fails from their plays.The characteristic I am obviously talking about is the presence of actors on live.There is an undeniable energy which flows between interpreters and spectators,which makes the drama more immediate and the emotions more intense.What I want to say is that although the presence of the actors on live may make the experience more cathartic,many playwrights use that as an excuse for presenting weak and predictable stories.The movie The Girl in the Park is based on a play,and maybe because of that I did not expect too much from it,because without the presence of the actors on live,I thought we would only have a weak story.Fortunately,that did not happen and I finished liking this movie pretty much.This movie represents the first work as a director from playwright David Auburn,who wrote the original play.He had already been involved on cinema,adapting one of his plays to the film Proof and writing the screenplay from The Lake House.And,most recently,he has had a pretty solid debut as a director with The Girl in the Park,at the same time he also made a good work as a screenwriter on it.The Girl in the Park brought me a satisfactory and very interesting experience.The best element from it is definitely the excellent performance from Sigourney Weaver.She perfectly depicts the emotional evolution from her character,and she is absolutely involved on it.Kate Bosworth,Alessandro Nivola and Keri Russell also bring competent performances,although they feel a bit darkened by Weaver.And,although he is on a small role,the great David Rasche brings a detailed and solid performance.The movie keeps a good tone and the story is always interesting.The fails I found on this movie are the following : on the one hand,some moments from the screenplay could have had more elaboration; and on the other hand,the ending feels a bit abrupt.There have been various cases of playwrights who make very competent works on cinema on the directing and screen writing fields.Movies like Doubt,Yes and Titus are examples of that.The Girl in the Park is a new addition to that list,and in sight of it,I am definitely interested in watching more movies written and directed by Auburn.I recommend this movie,because I found it to be an entertaining and pretty interesting drama.

This was a very good, small scale film. Outstanding performances by Weaver & especially Bosworth. Watch it if you are in a mood to stay with a piece & be entertained by analyzing the motivation behind people's behavior. It is not a commercial piece, not your typical movie fare. Good for a rainy day to drop into a cinema and see this, you will be discussing it w/your friends for days afterward. Hope David Auburn does more movies, this is his first directorial try & he did very well. Especially liked the way he handled Sigourney Weaver's personality after her daughter was kidnapped, the panic attacks and inability to socialize are dead on. At the end, the viewer is pretty sure of the ending but the actual facts behind it are not as important as the relationships that the characters have forged. I read a review that argued Julia should have just asked Louise to show her a birthmark but that is totally missing the point. It's a very layered, very dense movie that some will immediately 'get' and others probably never will. It's not a 'chick-flick' but it's a very cerebral movie.