'Lost Girls' Star Amy Ryan and Director Liz Garbus on Doing Right by the Dead | Sundance 2020
19'Lost Girls' Star Amy Ryan and Director Liz Garbus on Doing Right by the Dead | Sundance 2020
Lost Girls was the main event for me at Sundance, as I've been tweeting about the movie for more than six years, having read Robert Kolker's harrowing book. The film didn't premiere until Tuesday night in Park City, and I had to leave the festival that morning, but thankfully the streamer was kind enough to screen it for me prior to Sundance. I sat in a theater, all by my lonesome, and came away quite impressed with Liz Garbus' adaptation, which not only did justice to Kolker's book, but to the Gilgo Beach victims and their families.
Garbus stopped by the Kia Telluride Supper Suite in Park City with four of her stars -- Amy Ryan, Lola Kirke, Oona Laurence and Miriam Shor -- and before I get into what we discussed, I have to thank these five women for comforting me during a tough time, as they came in for their interview shortly after the news broke that Kobe and Gianna Bryant's deaths had been confirmed, which threw me for a loop. We all do our best to smile and maintain our professionalism in the video above, but I think everyone was hurting a little, and this group was intimately familiar with that kind of loss, given the nature of Lost Girls.
For those who don't know, Lost Girls concerns the investigation into a string of murders along Gilgo Beach in Long Island. The media framed the victims as merely prostitutes, rather than the mothers, daughters and sisters they actually were, and as such, the police didn't seem particularly motivated to solve the case -- which remains open. It was up to the victims' families to fight for justice and force the media to treat their missing girls like human beings, with respect and dignity, rather than tawdry innuendo.
Lost Girls serves as Garbus' narrative filmmaking debut, having come from the documentary world, though she did both in school. Lost Girls is a narrative film, but based on a true story and Kolker's thoroughly-researched book, so it was the perfect opportunity for Garbus to draw upon her background while doing something new.
There were "scripted projects I tried to mount, and they were always on very tough subjects, and I wasn't successful back then. But when I got this script, I was like, 'this is it. I'm not gonna give up or get distracted.' Because when you're mounting an independent film, it's [all] you. You just have to carry that boulder up the hill, and if you get distracted, it's very easy for a film to get derailed. And [this one] was a journey, but Im glad to be here," said Garbus, who directed from a script by Michael Werwie, who wrote Netflix's Ted Bundy movie starring Zac Efron.
"The book tells the stories of five families who have lost a daughter and their various struggles over the course of about 10 years as they try to get the authorities to help locate these girls, to no avail. What Michael Werwie did with the script was to find the story of Mari Gilbert, and make it the spine of our narrative. Her daughter, Shannan Gilbert, went missing one night, and she was the last girl to go missing as far as we know, in terms of this string of crimes. And she raised some hell, and got the police to start looking, but of course, it was too late. And in doing so, a group of women came together to get justice for their loved ones. It's also the story of Mari Gilbert forgiving herself as a mother."
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