Striking similarities with the McCann case have delayed the UK release of Ben Affleck's first film as a director. He talks to John Hiscock Ben Affleck film halted in UK over Madeleine McCann concerns
Iain Gray: Not everything is about Madeleine
The search for Madeleine McCann
Ben Affleck had not heard of the case of Madeleine McCann when he put the finishing touches to Gone Baby Gone, the provocative thriller that marks his directing debut. | |  | | Ben Affleck on the set of Gone Baby Gone and Madeleine McCann |
But when the film's British distributors pointed out it bore marked similarities to Madeleine's case, he immediately went along with their decision to pull it from the line-up of the London Film Festival and suspend its release in the UK indefinitely, even if it means that cinemagoers in Britain will have to wait a long time to see his maiden directing effort. "Disney UK made the decision to postpone the movie but I absolutely support it and I'm pleased by what I think is erring on the side of good taste," he says. "There's no rush. It's obviously a sensitive time and if there are any similarities we can wait to distribute the movie in the UK. "I was only vaguely aware of the Madeleine case because it wasn't a big thing here in the United States. Maybe I'm out of it because I don't read many newspapers, but I didn't really know much about it until somebody said, 'Hey, there may be some similarities.'?" Gone Baby Gone, set in Affleck's home town of Boston and based on a hard-boiled detective novel by Dennis Lehane, could be the movie that gains the likeable Affleck the film industry respect that his varied but usually mediocre film roles have yet to earn him. He does a creditable job of directing his emotionally wrenching story. The movie's missing four-year-old girl, named Amanda McCreadie and portrayed by a young actress named Madeleine O'Brien, bears a strong resemblance to Madeleine McCann and, as in the McCann case, the hunt for her is conducted in the glare of the media spotlight. But the similarities end there: the movie veers into a realm of drug dealers, ex-convicts, child abusers, broken families and bitter police officers. Affleck, whose most recent film role was in last year's little-seen Smokin' Aces, was hooked by the novel and began adapting it for the screen without knowing whether any studio would be willing to back his desire to try his hand at directing. "I've always wanted to direct a film but I never quite felt ready before," he says. "Maybe I just matured to the point where I felt I was ready to do this and maybe I just overcame my fear and I took the plunge and went out to see if anyone would give me the opportunity to do so. "I felt I had such a strong understanding of this story. The movie had to feel honest and real and the people had to seem authentic so I wanted to film on real Boston locations and use real neighbourhood people to weave some truth into this fictional story. I wondered if anybody else would see the idea I had the same way." Fortunately for him, the Disney?backed Miramax company did and was prepared to give him his chance. So with a cast that included his brother Casey Affleck and veterans Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris, he filmed Gone Baby Gone on location in the working-class Boston neighbourhood of Dorchester. As part of his preparation, he worked closely with America's National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to learn more about child abductions. "I was horrified at the prevalence of sexual abuse and of familial abductions," he says. "I couldn't believe it. By far the biggest danger to children is not abduction by a stranger but by an acquaintance or family member." Affleck, who has a 20-month-old daughter, goes on: "It's the worst thing by far that could possibly happen to a parent. It's an extremely powerful subject so it has to be handled delicately, and one of the things I really admired about the book was the way it wasn't exploitive but it didn't shy away from what it meant and how, when a child is abducted, the tendrils spread throughout the community: how the media handled it, how other people reacted and how the mother whom you think is a victim turns out to be this ugly person and how that affects people." The film's success or failure could determine the future career direction of Affleck, who is 35 now but first appeared in front of the cameras in a television film when he was eight. He has appeared in almost 40 films, although many of the roles were forgettable and a lot of the films were flops. The likes of Daddy and Them, The Third Wheel, Man about Town, Bounce, Jersey Girl, Paycheck and Surviving Christmas did little to enhance his reputation as an actor, and while he charmed critics and audiences in Chasing Amy, even hits such as Armageddon and Pearl Harbor were mostly panned by the critics. The highpoints of Affleck's career so far are the Oscar and Golden Globe he won in 1997 with his friend and co-star Matt Damon for co-writing the screenplay of Good Will Hunting, and his Golden Globe nomination last year for best supporting actor for his role as George Reeves, the star of the 1950s TV version of Superman, in Hollywoodland. To his mortification, he is probably best known outside Hollywood as one half of "Bennifer" – the name the gossip columnists bestowed on him and Jennifer Lopez during their highly publicised romance. The feeding frenzy of media scrutiny peaked when they appeared together in 2003's Gigli, which received such a critical drubbing that it affected their relationship and resulted in the postponement of the wedding they had planned for that September. Now married to Jennifer Garner, his co-star in the superhero movie Daredevil, Affleck is devoted to his wife and daughter, Violet. "Being a father is the most important thing that has ever happened to me," he says. "My daughter is extraordinary and it has kind of recalibrated my perspective on the world. "I've had an enormous amount of luck and I feel very fortunate for all the good things that have happened in my life. The last two years have really been very satisfying and have coincided with a career time that's been good and a really solid time in my personal life." He is awaiting the public's verdict on Gone Baby Gone before deciding on his next move, although he knows what he wants. "I'd like to continue directing," he says. "This experience has been a thrill for me and I hope people like this movie so I can keep doing it. "You get criticised and people write about you, but if you study it too carefully you would go crazy. From my point of view I'm happy and proud of this movie. It hasn't come out yet and if it is totally panned that would be disappointing to me but I would still like it in the same way I really liked Hollywoodland, even though it didn't make a huge amount of money at the box office. "It was satisfying to me and, as I've matured, I've learned to focus more on having my own criteria about these things rather than worrying about what everyone else thinks." |