Starring Katie Holmes, Benjamin Bratt, Charlie Hunnam and Zooey Deschanel

Written and Directed by Stephen Gaghan

Distributor: Paramount Pictures

Running Time: 99 mins.

Rated PG-13

Someone finally made a movie that doesn’t portray college students as wild drunken party animals. But “Abandon,” starring Katie Holmes and Benjamin Bratt, is a drawn-out film with an appropriately unspectacular finish.

Graduating college seniors are stressed to the breaking point by their drive to succeed. The resulting transition into the “adult” world is emotionally draining, especially for the seemingly perfect Katie Burke (Katie Holmes of TV’s “Dawson’s Creek”).

Katie is haunted by the memory of her old boyfriend, who disappeared without a trace two years ago. Sensitive cop Wade Handler (Benjamin Bratt of “Miss Congeniality”) is sent in to investigate the missing boyfriend, but instead falls for the unstable Katie.

This film marks the directorial debut for “Traffic” screenwriter Stephen Gahan, and he draws on the success of his old techniques for this new film. Odd camera angles and colored lighting inhabit every scene. The technique is hit-or-miss; it’s too hard to see what’s going on. But the overall “freakiness effect” is more successful. Dark and institutional settings like a dorm that looks like a hospital and the vacant library become scary places with fitting illumination and music.

Holmes is dark, tormented and very needy, great as a girl on a psychological teeter-totter. She plays the role of crazed and manic Katie Burke to a tee. But her love scenes, if you can call them that, leave a lot to be desired. She seems unable to turn off the cold and turn up the heat at the right moments.

Co-stars Bratt and British actor Charlie Hunnam (TV’s “Undeclared”) are the female audience’s eye candy. Hunnam plays missing boyfriend Embry, a wealthy and mysterious composer who breaks Katie’s heart. Bratt, as the recovering alcoholic cop, is almost father-like in his desire to help and protect Katie. Both men meet the same unexpected fate in the surprising ending.

The best performance, however, comes from the dazzling Zooey Deschanel (“The New Guy”), who plays Katie’s ditzy best friend Samantha. She’s bright and charming, a welcome light in an overall dark film.

Great acting alone cannot always sustain a film’s success and such is the case with “Abandon.” The actors were fantastic, but the movie takes so long to get going without much incentive to stick around. There is no hint of what is to come and what does come is so unexpected it hardly makes any sense. To say anymore would risk giving away too much. There were good moments in the film, no doubt, but not enough to translate into a great piece of cinema.

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