Took a while to get up the gumption to watch Keane. I knew enough about it to know it would be dark and harrowing and intense. One must block off some uninterrupted time and be in the right mindset to watch something like that.
I knew that Damian’s performance in Keane is what sold the Showtime brass on giving him the role of Nicholas Brody without an audition. The film is indeed intense watching. It’s a one man show really with the camera following Keane closely as he wanders the streets of New York, mostly silent and hopelessly disturbed. In Keane, Damian captures perfectly the confusion of mental illness, the murky stare of loss and despair and incapacity to communicate effectively. I found the film was more about the performances than it was about the writing. Amy Ryan as the harried single mother, and Abigail Breslin, in that child-wise-beyond-her-years way she has, were great too, both cast perfectly, in an ultimately heartbreaking and raw story.
