Cinematical

Unfortunately, those of you living in the UK and really looking forward to the much buzzed-about directorial debut of Ben Affleck, Gone, Baby, Gone, will have to wait some time before seeing the film. That's because Buena Vista International UK has suspended the release of the film indefinitely due to similarities between the flick and the real-life case of Madeline McCann, the British girl who's been missing since early May. Though the case is a fairly popular topic here in the States, I gather it's a much bigger deal in Britain -- especially now that the two parents have become official suspects in their daughter's disappearance from a Portuguese apartment.

Based on a book by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River), Gone, Baby, Gone follows two detectives tracking the case of a missing four year-old girl, and how it subsequently affects them both professionally and personally. It stars Casey Affleck, Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman, among others. By total coincidence, the name of the actress portraying the missing girl in the film is Madeleine O'Brien, which I'm sure would just add fuel to the fire across the pond. Affleck, who is totally behind the decision to pull the film, had this to say while at the Deauville Film Festival: "We are acutely aware of the situation. We have a greater concern for that than the release of our film, which is just a commercial matter, whereas this is a matter of life and death." Gone, Baby, Gone was also scheduled to have, what Variety calls, a "splashy" Oct. 26 Times London Film Festival gala screening, but it's since been pulled from the lineup. No word on when the film will arrive in the UK; I imagine it will depend on where the McCann case goes from here. Gone, Baby, Gone will arrive in US theaters on October 19.