If you love somebody...SET THEM FREE!
I'd like to read your thoughts on the following...
...Personally, I think Katie Wright did much more for ABDUCTION OF INNOCENCE than it did for her.
There's a lot that could and might have been done with this tale, but sadly wasn't. It would have been far better had the producers "pushed the envelope" and gone further with Clare's father being suspicious of her, although her mother urges him to put those suspicions to rest. Something like this...
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...When Clare is first arrested, Helen (her mom) forces Bob (her dad) to swear that he'll go straight to the police station and bail her out--without questions or delays--and bring her straight home. Then, once Bob is there, he bumps into that creepy FBI agent who got Clare arrested to begin with. Bob has a talk with the agent about why Clare is suspected of masterminding her own abduction...and returns home without his daughter. Then an outraged Helen telephones her brother and their parents (Clare's uncle and grandparents, respectively) and borrows the money needed to bail Clare out. Bob is astonished to find his daughter home so soon, and at first believes Helen dipped into his bank account. Her response: "Don't you EVER look at me like that again. We both know I would NEVER steal from you...And neither would Clare, I might add."
Later, Bob meets with Clare's attorney (without Helen OR their daughter) and asks the guy to level with him: Did or did Clare not arrange her own kidnapping? Bob offers to pay the attorney's fee and then some, so he can bow out of Clare's case...and let a younger, less-experienced fellow who has less to lose (and who happens to be a real shyster) defend Clare for the rest of the trial. After all, Clare's lawyer has been in this game for years; he's great at what he does, he's got a fine reputation; he shouldn't have to risk his high standing by defending a client whom he knows is guilty. But the lawyer tells Bob he believes that Clare IS innocent, and tears up Bob's buy-me-off check.
Finally, after the trial has concluded, the creepy Fed who arrested Clare comes up to beg the Steves Family's pardon...for, among other things, turning Bob against his daughter. Clare says there's nothing to pardon; it's not the Fed's fault that she (Clare) was the most likely suspect. "You had a 50/50 chance of being right, so don't beat yourself up for this." Helen, on the other hand, is not so quick to forgive: "If she won't say it, I'll say it for both of us." With that, she decks the Fed with a solid right cross, right there in the courtroom. Even Judge Block pretends he didn't see it.
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It also would have been better if Katie's character had evolved more over the course of the story. Something like this...
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...After she's found by the river, abandoned by her kidnappers, Clare becomes increasingly reclusive and obsessed with her schoolwork...even though she's already a straight-A student. She astonishes her classmates by resigning from all her extra-curricular activities...and by swearing off dancing, boys, etc.
In other words, Bob learns just what the true end result of his "golden cage" parenting will be: he was worried that Clare would make the wrong choices, so he made all her decisions for her--and wound up controlling her, which made him a stranger to his own daughter.
Now, in the same manner, Clare becoming a stranger to everybody at school...and her own mother, who accuses Bob of turning their only child into a huge bore at home. When asked what's going on in her life, Clare answers truthfully: "Just school and studying." That is, aside from the parties she was invited to but declined, and from the guys at school she turned down for dates...all so that she could study and/or do extra credit. Basically, Clare leaves her entire social life in the dust, so she can focus on her scholastics. She even skips Homecoming!
When Helen asks her to stay home from school and "just talk" with her, Clare's response is "What would my father say?" It doesn't help when Bob pops in at precisely that moment to ask why Clare is still home; doesn't she have classes today? Immediately, their daughter takes off for school; furious, Helen slams back into their mansion. Later, she lectures Clare that "Taking after your father is one thing; turning into him is something else."
Wait, it gets worse: after the trial has concluded, and Bob apologizes to Clare at home for doubting her, Clare asks him "What was wrong about it?" After all, it wouldn't have been wrong if one of her kidnappers hadn't confessed...would it? Clare even tells her father that "...If my daughter were arrested for something like this, I'm sure I would have made the same mistake that you did." Aghast, Bob gives Clare a hard slap across the face; Clearly blaming himself for her jaded attitude, he informs her that "I wanted you to be like me in some ways, but not in *every* way, and NEVER in THIS way." He also explains to her that no man will ever want to marry her, much less have a family with her, if she thinks and believes like this.
Soon after, Bob and Helen wind up disinheriting Clare except for a $12,000 annuity...provided she leaves the mansion, AND Steveston, for good. (Holy BARRY LYNDON, Batman!) Clare is astonished: "Why? Because I'm not the woman you raised me to be?" Bob's reply: "No. Because you ARE." Accepting the annuity and her father's terms, Clare is driven out of Steveston by the attorney who got her acquitted. She gets her GED with Honors, then signs up for Naval OCS--where she excels--and becomes a 2nd Lieutenant in the USMC.
Back in Steveston, Bob donates what would have been Clare's trust fund to charity. Then he adopts a young boy and his two sisters (one older, one younger) from the local orphanage. He says to Helen, "I'm going to give parenting another shot. Pray for me that I get it right this time."
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For the record, I compiled this "cutting-room-floor" version from various questionable sources...particularly supermarket tabloids and some rather obscure internet sites (which may or may not still be there).
What I enjoyed about this "cutting-room-floor" (for lack of a better term) version is, it builds on two things: Bob's growing conviction that Clare indeed masterminded her own kidnapping; Helen's growing conviction that Clare did no such thing but is merely recoiling from her recent trauma. Here, both parents are only half-correct: Clare's hermit-like behavior and obsession with scholastics are merely symptoms of something WAY worse that's happening to the girl. It turns out she's becoming another Bob Steves...in all the right AND wrong ways.
Come to think of it, this would have given the movie's title a nifty double-meaning: here, it is Clare's innocence itself which is abducted. She returns home safely, but she is no longer a normal teenager; the Clare Steves her family knew and loved is gone forever, replaced by a taciturn-if-tactful stranger.
Finally, there are two other finishing touches which I read were considered for this movie but tragically nixed...
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One of them found Clare's lawyer serving Buckle with a written confession in jail, which the young man will either sign--betraying Eddie--or be imprisoned and raped. Buckle signs it...and then slits his throat.
The other was an alternate end title song, which would have perfectly summed up the proceedings: Sting's "If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free."
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Oh, the stuff we can find to read about...and dream about.
...So how does this "cutting-room-floor" version sound to y'all? Better? Worse? Neither? Anyway, thanks for responding.