Lost Girls
Most people believe there is a system in place to help us when times are tough. That system, we like to think, catches those who fall on hard times and helps them find a pleasant resolution. We want a happy ending for everyone all the time, in spite of countless evidence that the opposite is often true. Lost Girls emphasizes how foolish those ideas are, and it comes at a time when such a message is desperately needed.
Lost Girls is based on the true story of Mari Gilbert, a mother and blue-collar worker faced with every parent’s greatest fear. Gilbert’s daughter, Shannan, went missing in 2010 along Ocean Parkway in New York City. She assumed the police would find her daughter in no time at all, but quickly realized the system was failing her and set to solve the mystery herself. Those efforts uncovered a string of unsolved murders, all involving sex workers, and brought to light a previously unknown serial killer whose victims had been overlooked or outright neglected by law enforcement officials.
The foundation of Lost Girls is ripe with familiar genre tropes. There’s questionable motives, suspicious strangers, and people living in the margins of modern society discovering just how little the world cares about their plight. There are a million stories with these elements, but what separates Lost Girls is that it stems from real life with little to no deviation from the key elements of the source material. The things we often think of as being a work of fiction are proven to be closer to the truth than anyone wants to acknowledge. The system does allow people to fall through the cracks, and there are many in positions of power who overlook the most at risk because it’s easier to do that than show genuine concern.
Where Lost Girls finds hope, and what kept Mari Gilbert going, is the community forged through tragedy. Gilbert’s search for her daughter leads her to other mothers and sisters searching for their missing loved ones. Gilbert wants to think that she is somehow different and that her experiences are unique, but she comes to understand she’s in the same predicament as countless families around the world. Someone she loves is gone, and no one has any answers.
Amy Ryan, delivering her strongest performance since Gone Baby Gone, shines as Gilbert. There is a mesmerizing quality to her delivery that pulls you into the story and makes you relate to the character’s struggles. There are countless parents working one or more jobs to support children with various needs in this time of great uncertainty, and while most choose to believe the worst could never happen to them, it seems safe to assume most know it could. Ryan conveys Gilbert’s struggle to keep hope alive while simultaneously doing everything in her power to find answers she’s aware she might not want to hear with a conviction rarely seen in cinema today.
Grade: A-minus. Rated R. Now available via Netflix
(Photo: Netflix)
