Abandon

Watch who you leave behind, is the tagline to this suspenseful drama, getting you in the mood to watch a movie that might not turn out exactly as one would first think.

Once started, you follow a young girl named Catherine Burke, otherwise known as Katie (played by Katie Holmes) who is a senior at an elite college, struggling to make it through her last few weeks there.

She must complete her thesis, finish her exams, and land a stellar job with a bank company called McKinsey, all the while battling exhaustion and stress.

To add on to her burden, an anything but perfect officer by the name of Wade Handler (played with Benjamin Bratt) starts to investigate the already cold case that is Embry Larkin (played by Charlie Hunnam), who went missing two years earlier. In the same time frame, Katie and Embry dated, while she was a sophomore and he was a senior.

As you continue to watch, you learn Embry was highly theatrical and a tad bit on the obnoxious genius side, through flashbacks from Katie's mind and the people Wade interviews while investigating. Because of this, most of these people believe he probably just got tired and left; something not very worthy of investigating. The rest of the interviewed people believe he's dead and that, as well, is seemingly not very worthy of investigation.

At first, Katie seems very hesitant to talk him. It is understandable: in the middle of thesis and exams, which has already stressed her out to her limits, she must talk about a boy she used to love who didn't really love her back. Afterwards, she admits to seeing him around campus and then even meeting up with him a few times, at the "old place", which is a run down castle, and the "old country house", a house out in the country side that used to belong to Embry. However, she wants nothing to do with him and seeks refuge in Wade, who comforts her and eventually gets together with her, promising her a year of alone time up in New Hampshire, where he had built a log cabin all by himself in the middle of the woods.

The job offer comes and Embry seems to have finally given up. While waiting for the cop, who is out battling personal issues, however, Embry makes another stalker-ish move to Katie, and then whisks away to the old place as the cop walks up. Following him becomes the climax of the movie, and seeing if they find him or not becomes an almost necessity. A twist that is hard to see coming, especially a newcomer to such a genre such as I am, is definitely a twist that makes the movie worth watching.