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Mike Griffen
Prof. Dunne
ENG 401
4 April, 2015
Working-Class Boston in Gone Baby Gone
Class, in the socio-economic sense, has been one of the most important lines of
demarcation in human culture and the primary determinate of social status dating back to
the dawn of civilization. Tensions and general disconnect between those occupying
opposite ends of the societal ladder is an inevitable reality of the class system. From the
patricians and plebeians of the Roman Republic to the bourgeoisie and proletariat of
Marxist Europe, conflict between social classes has proven to be an inherent part of human
society. In recent years the disconnect between working-class and non-working-class
members in modern America has been demonstrated in many facets of modern life. Since
the turn of the millennium the film industry has experienced an increased desire to
examine the struggles and lifestyle of working-class Americans, particularly in one of the
country’s conspicuously working-class cites: Boston, Massachusetts. The movie Gone Baby
Gone, starring Casey Affleck, Ed Harris, and directed by Ben Affleck, offers a penetratingly
realistic illustration of the pragmatism and gritty resolve of the city and its blue-collar
neighborhoods.
Gone Baby Gone is an adaptation of a novel by best-selling author Dennis Lehane.
Lehane, a native of Dorchester, where both the film and book are set, is renowned for the

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stark realism of his characters and his portrayal of inner-city Boston. With Lehane’s
assistance, Ben Affleck hits the mark in his directorial debut, adapting the story to film
while managing to retain the grittiness Lehane’s books are known for. The film allow us a
glimpse of the reality of working-class struggles and serves to remind us that these type of
things and these types of people really exist. The credibility of the movie is legitimized by
the involvement of its Bostonian director, as well as a number of producers, actors, and
screenwriters who were shaped by the backgrounds and neighborhoodsshown in the film.
Ben Affleck grew up in the Boston area alongside his brother, Casey who plays the
protagonist. The contributions of first-hand witnesses of this environment gives credence
to their representations help give us a taste of some of the truth that dwells just outside our
little bubbles and we often find it as unpleasant as the characters themselves.
The 2007 neo-noir film Gone Baby Gone focuses on Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck), a
private investigator operating out of a working-class neighborhood in Dorchester, and the
efforts of he and his partner, to find a local five year-old named Amanda McCready, who has
been abducted from her bedroom without a trace. The film was shot in Dorchester itself and
used local non-actors living in the neighborhood in supporting roles, adding a bleak
authenticity rarely seen in Hollywood productions.
The opening scene is beautifully powerful. The first twenty-five seconds or so are
silent. We are presented with a view of tightly-packed three family apartment units. A man
sits outside on his stoop smoking a cigarette, his hands hardened, callused, and grimy from
long daysof hard labor, while a woman in a belly shirt stands behind him, blankly gazing into
the distance. The silence is broken by Kenzie’s voice. Images of the neighborhood and its

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people continue to appear on screen; men on their porches sipping beers, street art on the
corner near a bus-stop, kids hanging out on the streets, a rundown building serving as a
church. Real people, living their everyday life. Kenzie’s monologue meshes flawlessly with
the visuals:
“I always believed it was the things you don't choose that makes you who you
are. Your city, your neighborhood, your family. People here take pride in
these things, like it was something they'd accomplished. The bodies around
their souls, the cities wrapped around those. I lived on this block my whole
life; most of these people have. When your job is to find people who are
missing, it helps to know where they started. I find the people who started in
the cracks and then fell through."
He is deeply proud of his neighborhood, proud that it has made him who he is, as are
most people on his block. Despite the disadvantages the inhabitants of his neighborhood
have been saddled with, he wouldn’t have it any other way. Neither would they. Their pride
for their home contrasts with the movie’s representation of many of the working-class
people as aggressive, violent, chest-beating men and angst ridden, apathetic women, people
whose only attainable victory is escape from the neighborhoods they love so much.
Hypermasculinity is an underlying theme among the men in this film. So much of the
discourse and relations between characters involves firearms, intimidation, threats, or
actual violence. Granted, Kenzie’s job forces him into Boston’s criminal underworld, where
such behavior is imperative to get respect, but even his exchanges with police detectives and
one of his employers follow similar lines. Violence and masculinity are displayed as the
language of the young working-class male.
There is a scene early in the film in which Patrick and his partner/girlfriend Angela
Gennaro (MelissaMonaghan)entera barto try to obtain information. It is mid-afternoonand

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the patrons, an aggressive, rowdy group of low-lifes, try to lock Kenzie and Angela in,
presumably with the intention of raping Angela. Kenzie pulls his gun and only then do the
patrons back off. Words don’t work, even punching one of the men fails to deter them, but
Patrick’s gun finally does the job and they are let out.
Amy Ryan brilliantly plays the missing girl’s mother, Helene, a lethargic, drug-using,
“welfare queen” – an amalgamation of all the qualities which haunt the nightmares of
Reaganites everywhere. The night her daughter was abducted, she left her home alone, door
unlocked, while she blew lines and had sex at a local dive bar. She panders to the cameras
and news crews, affecting the aura of a devastated and frightened mother. Not trusting the
police to produce any results in the search for Amanda, and realizing the Helene was useless,
the girl’s aunt and uncle hire Kenzie. Later, while Patrick and Angela attempted to question
heraboutAmanda, Helene tells them that they’reblocking theTV. She revelsin hertelevision
appearance,seeming to careless aboutfinding herdaughterthan herfifteen secondsof fame
on the local news.
While Helene may come off as an overblown caricature of a recidivist working-class
mother, her character is not at all farfetched. Although so-called “welfare mothers” are far
less common than many politicians would like us to believe, they do exist. Helene’scharacter
embodies everything that is wrong with inner-city working class life, the side of Patrick’s
neighborhoodmostpeoplechooseto gloss over.Her general lethargy and inability to put the
needs of her daughter before her own pathetic agenda is revealed to be the primary conflict
of the story.

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At the core of the film is a moral dilemma, one which forces Kenzie and Gennaro to
confront the reality underlying the pride in their home which has been engrained in them
since their youth. The truth is that their neighborhoodisnot the bestplace fora child to grow
up, a sentiment which is further accentuated by Helene’s poor maternal skills and off-kilter
moral compass. As the film pushes toward its climax, we find that Amanda’s uncle and
Helene’s brother, Lionel, had been observing Helene’s incompetence and neglect toward her
daughter. His tolerance reached a tipping point when Helene left the girl in her car for over
fourhoursona90-degreedayandAmandaroastedasa result. Hecontacted RemyBroussard
(Ed Harris), an agent for the Crimes Against Children (CAC) division of Boston Police
Department, who told Lionel he could help get Amanda away from Helene for good and give
her a nice home and a good life. Lionel quietly kidnapped Amanda and gave her to Jack Doyle
(MorganFreeman),Captain of the CAC anda man who hadseenhis owndaughterkidnapped
and murdered.
Fortheduration ofthe film, Doyleandhis wife gaveAmanda agoodlife and all oftheir
love at their own home. At the end of the film, Kenzie drives to the Doyle’s home in the
suburbs and discovers Amanda, happy and comfortable in her new life. Kenzie is presented
with a difficult, heart wrenching moral dilemma: keep quiet and let the little girl stay at with
a family who loves her and cares about her, or do what he was hired to do and return her to
her home and a trajectory that is likely to be wrought with unhappiness. Kenzie wrestles
with the issue. He eventually chooses to turn the Doyles in and return Amanda, despite
Angela’s promise that she would leave him if he did.

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The film ends with Kenzie again in Helene’sapartment. A gratefulHelene is preparing
to go on a date with some guy who saw her on the news. She tells Kenzie that she hasn’t even
set upa babysitterand wasplanning to dump newly returnedAmandaonaneighbor. Patrick,
clearly having some serious second thoughts about his decision, agrees to babysit. It is
obvious that nothing has changed.
Little Amanda is innocent, like sheep among wolves, entrapped since birth by a world
she neither chose nor understood. The bucolic suburban home of the Doyles and the life it
represents are ultimately snatched away from her, crushing her only hope of escape from
the working-class melancholy and conflict which she had so briefly escaped. In which
stemmed from his deep-seeded regard for the concept of community commitment and
integrity, Patrick simultaneously, forfeited his lover, defamed a highly respected police
officer who’d spent his whole career helping children, sent that man’s wife to jail, sent a little
girl’s uncle to jail, and sent the little girl back to a situation in which she was neglected from
one in which she was loved and cared for.
Boston’s history is deeply can trace its roots in the history if its working class. The
parochialism, pride, grittiness, and resiliency of its people have long been a defining
characteristic of the city. In Gone Baby Gone, Ben Affleck managed to capture the reality of
life in the working-class, its harsh realities and the character of its people. Although the
general prognosis on the life of the working-class people shown in the film is that it is less-
than-desirable, the film does show that the people there have accepted it and wear their
backgrounds as badges of honor. It manages to convey that places and people like this do
exist.