Every city has its share of mentally ill people who wander in a daze or shout obscenities at passersby. The looks on their is a mixture of anger and glee. It is easy to turn away from them, and very few filmmakers have tried to present an up-close-and-personal portrait of such a person.

Lodge Kerrigan's first film, Clean Shaven, explored schizophrenia. In this unsettling psychodrama, he plunges us into the life of William Keane (Damian Lewis), a father who is looking for his six-year-old daughter who disappeared while she was with him in New York's Port Authority Bus Terminal months earlier. Convinced that he will find her or at least pick up a clue about the person who abducted her, he retraces every move he made that fatal day. With a frantic look of desperation on his face, he paces back and forth in the busy building. There is no one to share his lonely journey.

This father clearly feels guilty about not taking proper care of his daughter. He finds some release in a bar where he orders the bartender to play "Can't Help Myself" full blast. He takes some cocaine and has sex with a woman in a disco bathroom. Back at the transient hotel where he is staying, William meets Lynn (Amy Ryan) who has a seven-year-old daughter Kira (Abigail Breslin). She needs some money, and he helps her out saying, "I've been in your position and I know what it's like." One thing about being down-and-out in New York, there are plenty of others in the same boat you can empathize with.

When Lynn has to take some time off from her job as a waitress to sort out some marital problems, she asks William to pick Kira up from school and take care of her until she returns. Given his unbalanced state of mind and emotional turmoil, this request and its unfolding come across on the screen as very scary and uncomfortable. Credit must be given to Kerrigan for taking on such a daring psychodrama and to Damian Lewis for his riveting performance as Keane. We need more movies like this one to exercise our empathy and to open our hearts to all the invisible people who surround us on city streets.


Special features include an alternate cut by executive producer Steven Soderbergh.