Without a Trace (1983)

Wonderfully offbeat film!

Purely Joyful Movie!

Highly Overrated But Still Good

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

What a meh of a movie! Although it's good for a good sob. Kate Nelligan maintains a single expression throughout: pursed-lipped, blanked-faced concern. A highlight is a climactic speech given by Stockard Channing as she sports an 80s shag perm so frizzy she looks to have just been electrocuted, an effect belied by the fact that she spends the whole emotional scene calmly stirring her finger in a bottle of Tab. The film ultimately struck home for me, however, because all the appliances in the film were vintage Reagan era and exactly the same I had at home as a kid, down to the analog clock on the oven and the absence of a microwave. All and all a dull, yet somehow still engrossingly forgettable film that jumped the early wave of post-Etan Patz/Steve Stayner kidnapping hysteria!

I haven't seen this movie for years, but I think about it whenever I hear of a news story where a child goes missing.If I live to be 100, I will never forget the final scene of this movie *** don't read any further if you intend to see it *** Judd Hirsch had located the kid after years of detective work, and was bringing him home (un-known to his mother)in his squad car. As I recall, he had the lights and siren moving (I might be wrong on this point) as he believed that getting this child back in the arms of his mom was that important (it was).The mother was walking down the street with a bag of groceries, going about her daily life without her son. As she approached her flat, a police car screeched to a stop out front. Wondering what the commotion was about, she looked down the street to see her little boy emerge from the driver's seat of the police cruiser. It took a moment for it all to register, but when she realized that the kid was her long lost child, she threw the sack of groceries on the ground (the groceries scattered everywhere) and ran as fast as she could to hug her child, grabbing him in an embrace that threatened to squeeze the air out of him.It was one of the most powerful, riveting, happy and joyous movie endings I have ever seen, and I cried like a baby during that final scene. To this day, that movie still brings tears to my eyes. I wish all child abduction cases would end like this.

1983's WITHOUT A TRACE was my first exposure to the acting gifts of one Kate Nelligan. Nelligan dominates the screen as a soon to be single mom who sends her young son off to school one day and he disappears. The film makes all the predictable twists and turns you expect it to but the journey is worth it because of the gut-wrenching performance by Kate Nelligan in the lead. Credit must be given to skillful direction and a decent screenplay and strong supporting turns from Judd Hirsch as as a detective, David Dukes as Nelligan's self-absorbed ex, Stockard Channing as her insensitive best friend and Kathleen Widdoes as a psychic, it is the performance by Kate Nelligan that raises the bar on this one, who brings so much more to her performance than is in the script, rich, detailed, and worth studying.

Kate Nelligan, always a forthright and gripping actress, gets to show many different sides as a single mother in New York City whose little boy disappears one day while walking a short distance to school; she clashes with authorities and friends, but is convinced her child has been kidnapped and is still alive. These type of human dramas are all pretty much the same, but if the extremities pull you in, they are undeniably absorbing. There's a horribly facetious sub-plot about a homosexual suspect (who seems to be rendered guilty by virtue of his fetishes), but Nelligan gives the familiar theme her class and ladylike vigor, making it fresher than most, and she's helped by other good actors like Judd Hirsch, Stockard Channing and David Dukes. The film is ultimately hurt by its clichés (especially when dealing second-handedly with police lieutenant Hirsch's family life); and as for the climax, it'll either strike you as very emotional or incredibly hokey and over-the-top. ** from ****