Katie Holmes usually chooses much better feature-film vehicles than her Dawson's Creek cronies.  Aside from a clunker or two, Holmes has worked with some of the best directors out there – Ang Lee, Sam Raimi, Curtis Hanson, Doug Liman – and in so doing has managed to build a decent little portfolio of films in which she has capably handled a supporting role.

Abandon is the first film Holmes has really had to carry on her own, and – unfortunately for her – it's a bit of an unwieldy mess.  Holmes (The Gift) plays Catherine Burke, a Harvard senior suffering from Finish Line Syndrome, a debilitating affliction brought about by looming thesis deadlines and real-world job interviews.  Granted, Catherine may have a little more on her mind than the rest of her classmates.  For starters, her silver-spoon-fed boyfriend Embry (Charlie Hunnam, Undeclared) vanished a couple of years back.  Now, just as she's finally gotten Embry out of her system, a divorced, recovering alcoholic of a gumshoe named Wade Handler (Benjamin Bratt, Traffic) starts sniffing around for clues to Embry's disappearance.

To make matters worse, Catherine starts to glimpse Embry around and about campus, almost as if he's stalking her.  These scenes, which are delivered right alongside Catherine's numerous flashbacks to her life with Embry, create a haze similar to what she's likely experiencing in that pretty little head of hers.  Eventually, because of an inability to concentrate, Catherine lands in a shrink's office (Tony Goldwyn) to complain about when her daddy abandoned her as a child.

Abandon's biggest problem, other than its frustrating choppiness (it seems like many sections were haphazardly excised without any thought as to how it would affect other scenes), is with Catherine's character.  We get a decent background – she's from the Midwest and her grades earned her a full college scholarship – but we never really get a handle on what she's like. In one scene, she delivers answers like a terminally dull robot, but in another she's a hard-drinking cut-loose.  Holmes does what she can with the part, adding a completely unnecessary bra-and-panties number, and apparently isn't afraid to look downright shitty from time to time, whether her Catherine is hung-over or just plain exhausted.

On the plus side, Zooey Deschanel (The Good Girl) logs another strong, scene-stealing performance as Catherine's slutty, smack-talking best friend. Abandon's score and photography, respectively from Requiem For a Dream's dream team of Clint Mansell and Matthew Libatique, are terrific, making the film much more dark and moody than the script would on its own.  Stephen Gaghan, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Traffic, makes his directorial debut here, adapting the story from Sean Desmond's novel, Adams Fall, which was named after the Harvard house in which the story takes place.  The novel, by the way, was about a male student.

1:32 –

for drug and alcohol content, sexuality, some violence and language