Abandon

Stephen Gaghan won an Oscar for his screen adaptation of Traffic. Here, as writer and director, he sacrifices logic for gimpy melodrama as his psychological thriller-cum-romance trudges to a surprise ending that left me yawning. College girl Katie (played by Katie Holmes) is working hard on an uncooperative thesis and is involved in a grueling interview process for a high-profile New York firm. She is visited by a recovering-alcoholic police detective (Benjamin Bratt) investigating the two-year-old disappearance of her quasi-brilliant-in-a-Jim-Morrison-sort-of-way boyfriend (Charlie Hunnam from the British series Queer as Folk), and then the boyfriend himself shows up and stalks her. This cautionary tale of rejection, betrayal and revenge is moody (it feels mostly shot through the same blue filters used on some of Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic interludes) but even the vibrant Zooey Deschanel as Katie’s closest friend is hamstrung by the story’s dippy, telegraphed progression.