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If you lost what you loved most in this world,
what would you be willing to do to get it back?
Godsend also raises some important questions about science, free will, and the conflict between moral choices and human ability. For example, at a high point in the film, Adam’s father confronts Dr. Wells, who cloned Adam, with the gravity of what he has done. Dr. Wells defends himself, saying, “If I’m not supposed to do this, then why is it that I can?” Interestingly, this confrontation happens in a church.
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(2004) Film Review |
| This page was created on May 29, 2004
This page was last updated on
May 17, 2004
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| CREDITS |
| Directed by Nick Hamm
Screenplay by Mark Bomback
Producers
Christopher Briggs ... associate producer
Michael Burns ... executive producer
Marc Butan ... producer
Mark Canton ... executive producer
Mark Cuban ... executive producer
Jon Feltheimer ... executive producer
Eric Kopeloff ... executive producer
Steve Mitchell ... co-producer
Sean O'Keefe ... producer
Robert Ortiz ... associate producer
Michael Paseornek ... executive producer
Cathy Schulman ... producer
Todd Wagner ... executive producer
Cast - in credits order
Greg Kinnear ... Paul Duncan
Rebecca Romijn-Stamos ... Jessie Duncan
Robert De Niro ... Richard Wells
Cameron Bright ... Adam Duncan
Merwin Mondesir ... Maurice, Young Thug
Sava Drayton ... Young Thug #2
Jake Simons ... Dan Sandler
Elle Downs ... Clara Sandler
Edie Inksetter ... Footlocker Cashier
Raoul Bhaneja ... Samir Miklat
Jenny Levine ... Sandra Shaw
Thomas Chambers ... Jordan Shaw
Munro Chambers ... Max Shaw
Jeff Christensen ... Hal Shaw
Deborah Odell ... Tanya
Jordan Scherer ... Roy Hazen
Original Music by Brian Tyler
Cinematography by Kramer Morgenthau
Edited by Niven Howie and Steve Mirkovich
Rated
For rating reasons, go to FILMRATINGS.COM, and MPAA.ORG.
Parents, please refer to PARENTALGUIDE.ORG |
| TRAILERS AND CLIPS |
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| CD |
Godsend (Score)
Brian Tyler
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| SYNOPSIS |
 “We’ve already lost everything.”
Paul and Jessie Duncan (Greg Kinnear, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) have lost their beloved eight year-old son Adam (Cameron Bright) in a tragic accident. As they are arranging for his burial, Dr. Richard Wells, (Robert De Niro) approaches with the incredible offer to clone Adam, essentially bringing back their boy and reuniting their broken family.
Despite the many legal, ethical and moral issues raised by the offer, the grieving couple, after much soul searching, accept Wells’ proposal, placing them in a sort of Faustian pact with the doctor. But to the Duncans, the secrecy Wells demands is insignificant compared to the hope that their son will again have the chance to grow up. The couple moves to the small town of Riverton, home of Wells’ impressive Godsend Fertility Clinic, where the stem cells carrying Adam’s
DNA are implanted in Jessie’s womb and where Adam will be born and raised – for the second time.
Adam’s new life follows a comfortable and, to Paul and Jessie, predictable pattern, until he reaches his eighth birthday – and virtually begins living on borrowed time.
The parents have placed their complete trust in Dr. Wells, but now questions are raised and they start to wonder: just how far did he really go? Did he settle for simply playing God? Once they unravel the horrific truth, Paul and Jessie Duncan will have to come to terms with what they have done, and what has been done to their family.
A thriller about a family that probes the outer-reaches of science and ethics in a desperate attempt to stay together, Godsend is also a cautionary tale for these challenging and morally ambiguous times.
—More here |
 Review by KEVIN MILLER
Kevin Miller is a freelance writer, editor, and educator who has written, co-written, and edited over 30 books, both fiction and non-fiction. A film reviewer for the past two years, Kevin is very excited to join hollywoodjesus.com. He currently resides in Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada with his wife, Heidi, and their children Huw and Gretchen (and one more on the way). They attend Fresh Wind Christian Fellowship, a non-denominational church that focuses on
reaching the disabled, children, and people who've been "burnt by the church." To learn more about Kevin, visit www.kevinwrites.com |
 If Godsend had been made 50 years ago in black and white, it would be exactly the kind of thing I enjoy watching late on Saturday nights when there’s nothing else on TV. That’s because
it’s full of the same campy plot devices and characters that make those old films so great—a mad scientist, a “monster” (the product of science gone wrong), non-stop “Don’t open that door!” suspense, and a musical score that’s always ready to jump up and scare you even if nothing else will. Like many sci-fi and horror films of the 1950s and 1960s, Godsend is also a cautionary tale, not so much about cloning—which is Godsend’s
main subject—but about what happens when the power to do such “godlike” acts falls into the wrong hands. In an era where technology borders on the miraculous, this is truly a parable for our times.
However, viewers today are a lot more sophisticated than they were in the 1950s. They’re not as apt to buy in to the faulty premises and dubious science that make those old films so laughable today. The intermittent titters I heard emanating from the audience during scenes that were supposed to make them cover their eyes in horror was ample evidence of that. Unfortunately, such devices are exactly what the makers of this film expect us to take seriously. And it just doesn’t
work.
 That’s not to say Godsend is completely without suspense. Similar to films like The Omen, The Shining, and Village of the Damned, this thriller gets most of its mileage out of “creepy kid shots”—close-ups
of the child/clone Adam (played brilliantly by nine-year-old newcomer, and fellow Canadian, Cameron Bright) as he tries to sort out who or what is messing with his head. It also includes its fair share of “Gotcha!” moments that usually don’t amount to anything but still give viewers a healthy shot of adrenalin.
Godsend also raises some important questions about science, free will, and the conflict between moral choices and human ability. For example, at a high point in the film, Adam’s father (Greg Kinnear) confronts Dr. Wells (Robert DeNiro), who cloned Adam, with the gravity of what he has done. Dr. Wells defends himself, saying, “If I’m not supposed to do this, then why is it that I can?” Interestingly, this confrontation happens in a church. And when it’s over,
the entire building goes up in flames, as if to signify that our ability to completely control the reproduction process through cloning means we won’t be needing God’s services anymore, thank you very much.
The problem is, Dr. Wells’ defense is essentially a copout. Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should. I could go out and kill someone anytime I want, but does that make it right? Of course not. We can’t assume God condones such activities just because he doesn’t stop us from doing them. In addition to blessing us with tremendous abilities in science, technology, the arts, and so forth, God also gave us the power of reason and an inherent sense of
right and wrong with which to regulate those abilities. Thus, it is up to us, not God, to decide what we should and should not do. God isn’t about to step in like an overprotective parent and make such decisions for us. If he did, how could we ever grow and mature? However, like a good parent, God does provide us with wisdom and guidance—if we are willing to listen to it. But in the end, how we use that information is up to us. God respects our powers of self-determination
that much.
 Adam’s parents, Paul and Jessie Duncan, are slightly more willing than Dr. Wells to face up to the moral consequences of their choices. However, like him, their ability to do so is clouded over by grief. Like a child
whose pet has just died, Adam’s mother (Rebecca Romjin Stamos) cries that she doesn’t want another child; she wants Adam! And, like a child, her reasons are pretty much self-centered. She feels pain, and she believes getting “another” Adam will make that pain go away. But there’s something sick about the idea of parents who are willing to go to such lengths just to restore their peace of mind, to believe a lie so strongly that eventually they have difficulty
discerning it from the truth. I felt incredibly sorry for “Adam 2” during most of this film. Not only was he battling for his soul as a result of a sinister interference in the cloning process, he also had to carry the emotional burden of two painfully needy adults whose real problem wasn’t so much the loss of their first son as their inability to face up to their own emotional deficits. Thankfully, the filmmakers had enough sense to show that such denial of the truth
will jump up and bite us sooner or later.
At the same time, I’m fairly certain that the choice the Duncans face in this film is one that many couples will be facing in the not-too-distant future. Films like this are useful when it comes to helping us think about how we would respond under identical circumstances. It may begin with pets. That is, perhaps little Jimmy really will be able to get his old dog back through the power of cloning. But let’s be honest: If the ability to clone humans does become widely available
(as I suspect it will), do you really think we will be able to keep ourselves from opening this “Pandora’s Box”? Like the Duncans, I suspect many other grieving parents will be unable to resist the temptation to “replace” the child they lost rather than walk through the grieving process. And their judgment will be similarly clouded. I can’t help but think of the emotional and psychological consequences for these cloned children. Think of the identity
crisis they will go through when they discover they are nothing more than a “replacement.” No matter how much their parents dote on them, they will know their parents don’t really love them; they merely love the memory of the child that was lost.
Early on in the film, Paul, who is a high school biology teacher, is considering a move from the tough inner-city school in which he works to a better paying job in the suburbs. He realizes it is a good opportunity for his family, but he feels such a strong loyalty to his students that taking the job would be akin to selling out. Jessie disagrees. She wants to move out to the suburbs, because she doesn’t like the thought of raising Adam in the city. In what is supposed to be a heartwarming
scene, she tells Paul she respects his ethics, but when it comes to your children, sometimes ethics have to take a back seat. Yikes. Fortunately, the rest of this film is a powerful enough refutation of such fallacious moral reasoning that viewers are unlikely to adopt it for themselves. |
The following is not a review
An overview |
If you lost what you loved most in this world,
what would you be willing to do to get it back?
This is the impossible question confronting Paul and Jessie Duncan when they lose their beloved son to a tragic accident. The chance to bring their son back through untested science carried out in secret draws them into a horror they could not imagine and a Faustian pact that they could not foresee.
Love and loss form the center of both the compelling drama as well as the disturbing psychological horror of Godsend. “The script presents a drama with an accessible emotional undercurrent and inside that are the horror elements,” observes Godsend’s director Nick Hamm. “What is truly powerful and interesting, and ultimately most frightening,” he says, “is human behavior — more specifically, human behavior under duress.”
With an extraordinary cast — Greg Kinnear, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Robert De Niro, and a new discovery: Cameron Bright as eight-year-old Adam — Nick Hamm takes Mark Bomback’s original and emotionally terrifying script and grounds the horror firmly in the psyches of his characters. Interweaving an intense psychological thriller with the universal themes of parental love, loss and hope, Godsend is a taut character-driven film as timely as it is chilling.
Cloning a child is the action that ignites the narrative, but characters fuel the film’s drama as they are haunted by the ethical and moral implications of their actions. “The combination of psychological realism of the parents’ grief and the opportunism of a brilliant scientist combine to make the dramatic choices and implications of our film truly horrific,” explains Hamm.
The terror at the heart of this movie overtakes the characters and audience in determined, measured steps. Hamm deliberately eschewed any of the loud computer-generated or optical effects that tend to overwhelm some contemporary horror movies. “We have all concentrated on the telling of the story and on inviting the audience into that story,” he says. “We allow the filmgoer a sense of personal involvement with the characters rather than merely becoming voyeurs in
a slasher-type horror film.”
“We were determined not to turn this movie into a gore-fest,” says producer Marc Butan “The issues the script raises are so powerful and the characters so vivid that, from the outset, we made a commitment to maintain the integrity and intelligence of this production.” That commitment to integrity, the intriguing characters, and the production team’s proven track record (Hamm, a highly acclaimed stage director in England received positive notices for his
first feature, the British thriller, The Hole; while Godsend producers Eric Kopeloff and Michael Paseornek had recently completed Lions Gate’s Oscar®-winning Monster’s Ball) attracted Kinnear, Romijn-Stamos and De Niro to Godsend. Between them, the three stars share almost every moment of screen-time.
The rich visual style that accents and evokes the chilling elements of the story was created by production designer Doug Kraner and director of photography Kramer Morgenthau. Long-time Woody Allen collaborator, Suzanne McCabe designed the wardrobe for a young family who experience a sudden shift in place and purpose as well as the Mephistopheles-like doctor who dramatically changes their life. The stylish editing of this uniquely CGI-free film is by Niven Howie (Lock, Stock, and Two
Smoking Barrels), and horror veteran Steve Mirkovich.
—More here
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