Eden

Every now and then I see a movie that just hits the spot. This is one of those movies.

I watch a lot of movies on DVD because they often never make it to the theater here in Australia. One of the good things about doing that is you can stop and start it anytime you like. This is one of those movies that I did not stop watching from start to finish.

While it is a very simple movie with very little in the way of action or graphic violence it is still a very disturbing and haunting movie that will stay with you for a long time after you have finished watching it.

Jamie Chung as Eden was perfect and she held my attention throughout. Matt O'Leary as the cool and hardened Vaughan was also very believable. The rest of the cast also did an excellent job and made the movie what it was.

Don't watch this movie if you have a weak stomach. Even though there isn't much over the top violence, just the thought of what is going on could turn your stomach.

The fact that it is based on a true story makes it all the more heart wrenching.

8 out of 10 for me.

I watch a LOT of movies so I'm used to formula, which all too often is what is relied on these days. I was therefore pleasantly surprised by Eden because it's not in the least predictable, and I can only imagine that's because its based on a true story. I don't know how MUCH of it is true but you can definitely see that elements are not the product of a script-writer's imagination.

Why? Because they are simply too sickening to be made up. I won't discuss the plot elements, other than to say it's about kidnapping young women to sell them into a life of sex slavery. Yeah, fun stuff! That said, it doesn't rub your face in the gruesome details of what the girls are forced to do, but rather focuses on the experience of one person, the Eden of the title, as she works to free herself from a seemingly unwinnable situation.

Played by Jamie Chung, at first she seems to be an almost unbelievably naive and trusting person but gradually her gritty determination is revealed as she turns the tables on her kidnappers. This part is the most satisfying because it's not far-fetched or predictable. The characters are all well-played, with a rare turn by Beau Bridges as a completely evil SOB.

Jamie Chung is very believable in a demanding role that requires her to be in every scene, and plays it very low-key throughout, using her magnetic eyes to great effect to express what's going through her mind. Matt O'Leary also does very well in a supporting role.

This is a very important film and needs to be seen as widely as possible. I have a teenage daughter and I want her to watch it. As a cautionary tale, it does a terrific job. Far more horrifying than any horror film.

Some viewers would say the film was weak on portraying how the human sex traffic trade takes full advantage of unsuspecting teenagers (boys as well as girls) by scooping them off the street due to these teenagers own ignorance to the extent of the sex traffic trade, and/or more likely by raising these teenagers self worth, albeit temporarily, until the pimps have full control of them.

Whether or not this film is loosely based on a true story of a young South Korean girl named Chong Kim should not be what the majority of the films audience should be focused on, nor the disappointment that a movie that is based on the illegal sex trafficking lacks any gratuitous x-rated sex scenes. Instead what the viewers like myself absorbed from Miss Chong Kim's ordeal is we need to do a better job as a nation in realizing how extensive the sex trafficking trade really is, and what we all can do to stop it.

Firstly, there would be no sex trafficking in North America if there was no demand for the supply of teenage girls (and boys). In this film actor Beau Bridges does more than an adequate job as the corrupt law enforcement officer Bob Gault. Some of the other reviews commented that this is not realistic that a law enforcement officer would be a leader in the sex trafficking ring, but every year law enforcement officers across North America are found guilty of many criminal offences and the important "breach of trust" crime.

Actress Jamie Chung who plays the young teenage female victim Eden (with braces on her teeth), who was easily duped by a young man in uniform to foolishly feel safe enough to take a ride in his car and then she was quickly moved into the sex trade is a wake up call for all teenagers. The key message being there are many wolves in sheep's clothing and we as a nation have to be more engaged in stopping this corrupt criminal behaviour. Of course the actress Jamie Chung was taller, thinner, with a buff body than the shorter and heavier real life Chong Kim. I felt Jamie Chung did a great job in portraying the real life Chong Kim and how the victim had to adjust to a life in the sex traffic trade over the years she was imprisoned.

I would also suggest to those critical viewers who scoffed that the dozens of teenage girls who were imprisoned under lock and behind gates in a storage locker as being unrealistic, lets be clear, regardless of where these teenage girls were being housed when they were not working on their backs or knees lets just agree that they were not living the life of a socialite like Paris Hilton, or as a madam like Heidi Fleiss. No I am quite sure that the teenage girls who are really imprisoned by pimps and actively (today and tomorrow) engaged in the sex traffic trade are living in squalor, eating poorly, and have absolutely no life or ambition to speak of.

I thought the director/co-writer Megan Griffiths did an admirable job of finely balancing the need to NOT over sensationalize the graphic sexual plight of these young teenage girls, but instead emphasize how young women need to appreciate how easily it is to find themselves victims if they do not pay a lot more attention to the wrong type of people who could easily over power them if they are not a lot more careful as to who they choose to socialize or even be in the wrong place (like a bar, a public park late at night, or a pool hall) at the wrong time.

This is a clean enough film that I would suggest parents of all young teenage girls as well as teenage boys should watch as a learning tool. This is real life sex trafficking that we should not ignore, but we should be doing a lot more to prevent. I give the film a fair 6 out of 10 rating for "lessons learned".

Saw this movie at SIFF and STILL can't stop thinking about it. Script, direction, acting, and cinematography are all impeccable. The three leads are perfectly cast. Matt is desperate, hardened, and yet strangely likable. Jamie does a fantastic job as well in a role that requires serious vulnerability and emotional depth. Megan Griffith's directing is superb and the style and tone of the overall film is spot on. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time because the story is so captivating and hard to believe. I'm dying for this film to hit theaters, because it is so incredibly well done. I want to read the memoir it's based off of after seeing the lengths this girl went to to escape from captivity. Thank you for tackling this story and subject matter!

Human trafficking is such an antiseptic term. It intellectualizes and softens something that is absolutely horrific. It's the type of term that lives in the world of academia and statistics. There's no emotional impact, no default outrage, no real teeth to it. I prefer to call it what it is, slavery. At this moment it is estimated that up to 4 million people internationally and up to 50,000 people domestically are held by human trafficking rings.

To put a finer point on it… there are, at this moment, 50,000 people owned as slaves in the United States. Not historically, not descendants of freed slaves, but actual living breathing human beings living as slaves right now. This is not just a forced labor situation either; we are talking about forced prostitution.

Some are sold by their parents, some are recruited into domestic service jobs only to find out when they are in another country with no ability to leave what the job really is, and other are taken right off the streets in the US and forced into it.

A majority are women and almost all are under 18.

These numbers are jarring, alarming, and disgusting and nowhere near enough people are aware of them.

Eden is the true story of Chong Kim, a Korean American woman who, at the age of 19, went to a bar with a fake ID, had a drink with a very nice fireman who offered her a ride home. He pulled over to make a phone call and by the time she realized that something was wrong… it was too late. She woke up in the trunk of a car and began a harrowing two year long nightmare of isolation, forced prostitution, and every type of abuse and degradation you can imagine. This is not an easy or comfortable film to watch, but it is about something so very important that I believe it needs to be seen. Much like Damian Harris's "Gardens of the Night," which follows the younger spectrum of this abhorrent practice, it sheds light on a world so blackly dark and hidden from view that most people don't know that it exists.

Unlike "Gardens," which shows a world so vile and reprehensible that it exists entirely behind the curtains and closed doors, "Eden," shows a normalized and, in some ways, accepted trade. It's in the shadows, yes, but it is still in the light. The people who trade in it are somewhat open about it. There are parties with men in suits, fraternity parties, and underground S&M clubs where this type of traffic is a normal part of business. It's an entirely corrupt world where even the law cannot be trusted.

Director Megan Griffiths does an outstanding job of finding the small pieces of humanity in a dehumanized world and contrasts them with the inherent brutality of the situation. Her direction is unflinching but not exploitative, honest but never preachy, and powerful without being manipulative.

The performances are phenomenal across the board but the film is moored by two standouts. Jamie Chung creates a heartbreakingly real woman whose sweetness and innocence are stripped away. Matt O'Leary gives an amazingly nuanced performance as Eden's crack smoking handler. He is hateful and repellent, but is also very real.

This is a rare film in that it has changed the way I look at certain things. You hear terms like "human trafficking," and "forced prostitution," and are justifiably horrified, but they are just abstract concepts. Seeing the reality of women forced to live in dark storage lockers, four to a room on bunk beds, and knowing that it is happening now, in my country both horrified and sickened me. Suddenly, these concepts were no longer concepts, but living breathing facts.

In a world where millionaire athletes and musicians throw the world slave around it is fairly sobering to have the reality of it shown so plainly.

I rarely use the term "important," to describe films as even the most "important" films rarely are. Usually it really means "self important." This film however deals with an issue most of us would rather pretend doesn't exist, but that is far more important than can be expressed.

"Eden" shows evil in its truest form. The evil that allows people to profit from suffering, the evil that exists when good people don't stand up for what is decent, the evil that exists in a world where girls (and let's be clear they are GIRLS) can be treated as disposable property.

Related Films:

Very Young Girls- Documentary about teenage girls forced into prostitution.

Gardens of the Nigh- Fiction film about a girl kidnapped into the world of child sex trade.

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