Your Family Guide to Entertainment
Godsend (2004)Click here for a detailed explanation of how we determine our grades.
The MPAA rated Godsend PG-13 for violence including frightening images, a scene of sexuality and some thematic material.
Moving out of the city into a nice country house with their eight-year-old son seems like the perfect plan for Paul (Greg Kinnear) and Jessie Duncan (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos). But when Adam (Cameron Bright) is tragically killed in a freak accident, the world crumbles around the young couple.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]Struggling to accept their loss, the grieving parents are guarded when a former acquaintance of Jessie’s approaches them before the funeral. Promising to assuage their grief, Dr. Richard Wells (Robert De Niro) explains his findings in cell research and cloning. Using a single cell from Adam’s lifeless body, he can reproduce their son and give them back their child. Although they know the procedure is illegal, dangerous and ethically questionable, the distraught parents can’t resist. Swearing Paul and Jessie to strict confidentiality, the secretive physician whisks them off to his high tech medical facility in a small rural town.
Nine months later, a bouncing baby boy is placed in their arms.
This Adam looks just like his predecessor with a quick smile and infectious giggle. And his life seems to play out with an uncanny predictability. But as the years pass they realize he’s becoming very different—eerily distant and racked with night terrors. His vacant stares and frightening trances leave his parents terrified.
Turning to Dr. Wells for answers, they stumble upon dark secrets about their little boy and the doctor who played God.
While the unfathomable pain of the couple can’t be questioned, the actions of the doctor seem suspect from the first. Once Paul and Jessie agree to undergo the procedure, the doctor puts them up in a classic manor with a winding staircase and a dark basement that spawns instant misgivings. Set deep in a wooded lot along a gravel road, the new residence is ominous even before the obviously menacing music begins to play. It doesn’t take much imagination (even if you didn’t see the trailer) to realize things aren’t going to bode well for the young tenants.
Relying heavily on the “jump in your seat” factor to advance the story, the script probes the ethics that should accompany an accelerating ability to reproduce life in the scientific world. While that question is a good one, it (along with other queries) is left unanswered in favor of disturbing dream sequences and a passionate encounter, including some nudity, between husband and wife.
Unfortunately, the plot holes add up after a while and the element of surprise begins to wear thin. Giving birth to evil isn’t a new story line, and maybe like the Duncan’s boy-child duplicate, clones aren’t quite as good the second time around.
Talk about the movie with your family...
Dr. Wells believes that having the ability to do something, also gives him the right to do it. Do you agree with his logic? Do we have scientific and technological capabilities that should not be used because of moral and ethical reasons?
How did the Duncan’s decision to work with Dr. Wells interfere with their ability to grieve for their loss?
What ingredients do this movie’s producers use to create a thriller? What factors make for a movie scary for you?
Video Alternatives...
If scary movies are your genre, check out the films, Sixth Sense about a young boy who has the uncanny ability to see dead people. Nicole Kidman plays a young mother waiting for her husband’s return during the final days of World War II in The Others. If thrillers aren’t for you, look for Greg Kinnear in two romantic comedies, You’ve Got Mail and Sabrina.
Kerry Bennett
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2004 One Voice Communications. All Rights Reserved