Abandon

Abandon (2002) is a psychological thriller directed by Steven Gaghan — watch it online on iFILM. Detective Wade Handler (Benjamin Bratt) is assigned a two-year-old cold case: a student at a prestigious university disappeared without a trace. His only real lead is Katie (Katie Holmes), the missing man's ex-girlfriend, who quietly claims she has been seeing him around campus.

Gaghan had written Traffic before stepping behind the camera here, and he brings the same interest in fractured perspective to his debut. The film's engine is the gap between what Katie says she remembers and what is actually happening — whether what she sees is a haunting, a breakdown, or something more deliberate. Charlie Hunnam and Zooey Deschanel appear in early roles. Colder and more unsettling than most studio thrillers of its era, Abandon is less a mystery with a solution than a study in how the past refuses to stay where it was put. Watch Abandon (2002) online on iFILM.