'Abandon' gets psychological

The commercials are conventional (woman threatened by a figure from her past), the movie poster is conventional (three faces separated by a knife blade in which we see a shadowy figure), yet the writer/director is Stephen Gaghan, who won an Academy Award for his sharp, unconventional "Traffic" screenplay.

Something's got to give.

It turns out "Abandon" is a psychological thriller that doesn't thrill much and whose ending we can guess halfway through; but if you're a lover of smart dialogue and intelligent characters, you won't be disappointed.

Katie Holmes ("Dawson's Creek," "Wonder Boys") plays Katie, a sharp finance student on the cusp of graduation from a prestigious East Coast university.

Bombarded with pressures — finishing her thesis, setting up job interviews, dealing with the crushes of boys and men — her life is further complicated when Detective Wade Handler (Benjamin Bratt) re-opens a 2-year-old case involving the disappearance of her boyfriend, Embry (Charlie Hunnam), a brilliant if solipsistic composer who was the love of her life.

We see snippets of their romance in flashback. As the investigation deepens, Katie begins to see Embry in the present, too. Is he still alive? Taunting her? Stalking her?

The secondary characters in the film are numerous and memorable. Samantha (Zooey Deschanel), Katie's smart-aleck friend, gets the best lines. Mousy Julie (Melanie Lynskey), who reshelves books in the library stacks and envies Katie's life, accurately describes Katie's hold over men. "The pea brain says, 'I can save her,' " she says of pea-brained men.

Katie Holmes, meanwhile, has down the small, exquisite gestures of pretty college girls.

Parts of "Abandon" are obvious, and the ending is quietly campy and provokes unintended laughter, but it's still a movie that credits its audience with some degree of intelligence and patience.

It's more psychological than thriller, and that's a welcome change.

Erik Lundegaard: elundegaard@earthlink.net.