The Girl in the Park (2007)

An overwrought melodrama with bold intentions but poor execution.

Essentially about loss, guilt and regret, Auburn’s film also examines Julia’s increasingly unhealthy obsession with her surrogate daughter, which gives it an air of uneasy tension that never amounts to much.

The film stretches credibility a little with the coincidences that could yet make Louise the missing girl, but gives the actors plenty to work with.

while there is a lot to like in Auburn's tightly focused film, it never fully pulls together.

Auburn leaves too many dramatic holes and blows his potentially explosive ‘Festen’ moment by allowing a confrontation over dinner to fizzle into anti-climax.

The kindest adjectives to describe Weaver's performance would be 'overwrought' and 'unsympathetic'.

Weaver’s still unresolved grief, subtly hits every note that Changeling plinked or plonked like a honky-tonk hokum artist.