My first thought: It's not that Leslie is "too pretty" as many critics have said, it's just that the girl looks entirely "too intact" for someone who has lived through the horrors that Leslie, played so aptly by child actress Ryan Simpkins, has. There ought to be signs of prolonged hard drug use and addiction in the older Leslie. And I am not jabbing at actress Gillian Jacobs at all. I'm just saying that they should have applied makeup effects suggesting malnutrition, abuse scars, acne pocks, and the like. It's just hard to buy Jacobs as a lifelong street kid when she indeed looks like one of the girls in Teen Vogue!
Jacobs performance is a fine one, in spite of the missing evidence in her physical presentation, yet the performance of Tamra Hope in "The Nickel Children" is so much more powerfully delivered. Not only because Catherine (Cat) was constantly covered in bruises and cuts and the body filth of one who lives on the streets, but because her quieter, less verbal character seemed to crackle beneath the skin. I was just more impressed by Hope.
How is it that kids who sleep underneath a pier on the beach look so groomed and polished?! Where do they get so many different outfits to try on? How is it that Cat and her friend have access to a mildewy motel shower and Leslie and Donny do not, yet L&D look great?! They would have been so much more true to life smudged with street dirt and battered and hardened looking.
Still it would be terribly wrong for me to write off "Gardens" totally. I don't really believe one film is superior to the other, only some of the performances. As I stated in my review of "Children" some time back, both of these films are very important stories about pedophilia. While "Gardens" focuses on child trafficking, "Children" is mostly about incest and runaways. Both films discuss the exploitation, abuse and eventual discard of these children and have won richly deserved awards. Both are sincere, not exploitative to the issue for profits sake, that's for damned sure. Both were made on shoestring budgeting, and the cast and creators took great risks personally and professionally.
"Gardens" excels in educating parents about the horrors of child pornography, how those who promote it and produce it conspire together against their victims, parents, government and local law enforcement.
As to the film itself, the angelic voiceover of Ryan Simpkins reading exerpts from "The Jungle Book" is all the narration required. We see things from her eyes. It is good that the child's voice continues to be heard, even after the role is taken over by Jacobs, as I believe Simpkins does a much better job bringing the character to life. One major flaw I see is that there really should have been an intro to her parents at the start of the film--sure, we know her parents love her and will search for her after she's gone, but it is crucial to show this family together before the tragedy anyway. Leslie's family is not a statistic, it's one family with a horrible story to tell.
I despised Sisto in this film, as well it should be. His character, Jimmy if I remember right, was very "icky" to me. Not only physically, with his oily hair and sleazy little smiles. His short time on screen was not wasted at all. The little "sales pitch" thing about using photo albums...ugh, "Profitable...and safe." What a way to word something so vile. Safe...yes...for the ones doing the selling of the children. Safe from exposure, safe from internet interception, safe from prosecution and justice. The children, not safe. Characters like Jimmy and that foul Orlando, the guy at the motel, were probably the ones I hated most. The way they try to justify what they're doing. Orlando telling Leslie her own dad would have eventually "touched her" too, that "everyone does it", and Jimmy, acting like selling children is his "livleyhood". And that crap about "Oh, I'm not into it myself either, I just sell the kids." Puhh-leaze! It's stuff like that that makes Orlando and Jimmy worse than Alex and Frank.
I had a few ?s come up: Why the pink tutu? Is the other girl the judge's own daughter? Does he abuse her?
Why were the cops who tried to raid Alex's house not at the back door as well as the front!? And why did that guy sitting there do absolutely nothing while Alex and Frank carried 2 bound and gagged small children away in their car??!!! That guy ought to be thrown in jail for sitting with his thumb up his ass and letting it happen!
I've suddenly run out of steam, and it's probably a good thing. You can tell this movie makes me mad as hell, but that's what it's supposed to do. I know I harped on a lot of the small details. What's important is that this film is about children endangered and it is real. I may like some things about the other film a little better, but both films are serious. Children are being sold into sex slavery in every country, every day. We need to know about it and we need to work together and stop it.
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GARDENS OF THE NIGHT