MYST Post #4: Gardens of the Night

Gardens of the Night

I had heard about this movie about a year ago from a friend who was doing a project on teen homelessness, and made a mental note to watch it sometime. I completely forgot about it until recently I was scrolling through Hulu and saw the name. I hadn't even seen the trailer - I had only heard from my friend that it is a sad movie about homelessness and prostitution.

Donnie and Leslie

This movie is about an 8-year-old girl named Leslie who is walking home from school one day when two strangers convince her that her parents have been called away on urgent business and that they have to drive her home. She gets in the car and drinks the soda that they offer her, promptly falling asleep after taking a few sips. She wakes up in a dark bedroom with a young boy named Donnie sleeping in the bed next to her. She is led to believe that her parents no longer want her; Donnie was told that his parents sold him for drugs. They are now a part of a child prostitution ring. Later, the movie cuts to Donnie and Leslie as homeless teenagers. Donnie is played by Evan Ross and Leslie by Gillian Jacobs. They are both forced to prostitute themselves in order to make money. Donnie talks about joining a traveling carnival to make money a different way but Leslie says that she is sick of moving around. Eventually, Leslie is at a homeless shelter and is told that her parents are alive and want her (up until this scene, she still believes that she is unwanted by her parents), so she is taken back home and reunited with her parents. Sitting at home that night, she realizes that she will never be comfortable again in that house like she used to be, so she sneaks out of the house and goes to find Donnie. As the credits roll, there are scenes of carnival rides, so the audience can assume that she went to join Donnie in the traveling carnival.

This movie was tough to watch, especially at the beginning when the two young children are being forced to prostitute themselves. Many times I found myself in tears listening to the kids crying and screaming and hearing the words the adults used to comfort them - "A caterpillar has to break out of its skin in order to become a beautiful butterfly. You don't think that hurts for the caterpillar? That's what you're doing right now - breaking out of your skin so that you can become a beautiful butterfly." However, I think that it is important that people watch this movie and force themselves to acknowledge that these things are really happening. People focus a lot on "trendy" problems in the world: world hunger, wars, etc. Those are very prevalent, sad problems, but so is child prostitution and homelessness. Watching this movie makes me upset that not very many people are trying to do something about these issues that exist in our very own country.

There was a lot of interesting composition in this film showing that no matter where the pair went or what they did, their troubles will always follow them. For example, there is a scene at the beginning of the movie where young Leslie and Donnie are taking a bath together. Baths are meant to be cleansing, right? Well not in this case. In this scene, one of their kidnappers is constantly in the background of the scene. There is another scene in which Donnie and Leslie are eating ice cream together in a diner while their kidnappers talk to a prostitution ring leader about clients for the children. The adults who are talking are constantly in the foreground or the background of the scene while the kids are talking about innocent things like birthday parties and eating ice cream - something which should be fun. 

The kidnapper is in the background while Donnie is in the bath.

Speaking of baths, there were a lot of bath scenes in this films. Leslie is taught when she is a child that clients like when she takes a bath first. It is obvious irony because, as I said before, baths are supposed to be very cleansing and you are supposed to feel relaxed and clean when you come out. Instead, she sits in the bath feeling dirty and nervous at what is to come. There is even one part where Leslie tries to drown herself in the bath. At the end when she gets back home, she sees her father bathing her little sister and it obviously reminds her of how her kidnapper used to bathe her. This could be symbolic of how nothing is ever as it seems, which is a prevailing theme throughout the film. When Donnie and Leslie would go out with their kidnapper, no one would suspect anything (except for one time, causing them to have to escape the police). Little did they know what was really happening to these children. 

Young Leslie being bathed by her captor.

Although this movie was very sad and tough to watch, I'm very glad I watched it. It has done a great job of depicting the tragedy and horror of child prostitution and the hardships of homelessness. I hope that more people watch this film and realize what a problem this is in our society even though we don't hear about it on a daily basis. I give this film a 4 out of 5 - the only things I didn't like about it was that it tended to drag on a little bit in the middle, and it never showed if Leslie actually reached Donnie.