Denis Villeneuve’s 2013 film, Prisoners, is somewhat unique among the movies discussed on this blog. The aim with this site is to track religious and spiritual themes that may be subtextual, but this film literally starts with Hugh Jackman reciting The Lord’s Prayer. In-universe, this is because he and his son are hunting. But we also catch onto the idea that asking the Lord to deliver them from evil perhaps has some bearing on things that are to come.
This film follows two families looking to rescue their daughters after their kidnapping. The majority of this story is centered on the perspective of Keller, played by Hugh Jackman, who will go to any lengths to see his daughter brought back safely. As Keller grows more desperate, he starts to unearth a part of himself that is truly monstrous.
The crux of the film has Keller abducting “Alex,” a man with limited mental capabilities, who was seen in the RV where the girls were playing before their disappearance. There are also vague clues that, in Keller’s mind, put him in proximity to the abduction. The police, led by Detective Loki (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) do not take his observations seriously, and this leads to Keller crossing several lines in kidnapping this adult-child and subjecting him to repeated, prolonged torture with the intent of finding out where his daughter is.
The direness behind this action is on full display for the audience, but there are layers of denial at work with Keller himself. Perhaps as a means of self-soothing, we see multiple instances in which Keller recites The Lord’s Prayer as he’s about to torture Alex, rationalizing that God is on his side here. As the torture goes on fruitlessly, he’ll also ask Alex, “Why are you making me do this?” Keller even tries to pass the blame onto Detective Loki for not trying hard enough.
By shirking responsibility, he doesn’t have to confront the fact that what he is doing is monstrous. He not only abducts this person–he full-on tortures him for an extended period of time. The film specifies that Alex’s IQ is roughly that of a ten-year-old–roughly the same age as the kidnapped girls. And so there is a twisted symmetry between the injury Keller has been afflicted with and the injury he is putting out into the world, which he refuses to see.
One source of the tension is that Keller does find threads of promise–signs that he is on the right trail (e.g. Alex knows what song the kids were singing). And so it almost looks like he’s doing the right thing. This spurs him to commit greater and greater acts of savagery on a defenseless individual. Because this will work, he is justified, or so he tells himself. The lie that enables this behavior is that the ends justify the means.
Except … the ends aren’t quite what he thinks.
We find out Keller was on the right trail, and that Alex is a sort of person of interest, but he was absolutely not the perpetrator. And so, the brutal lengths he goes to try to recover his daughter wind up balancing no wrongdoing and uncovering no end. There could have been an avenue in which Keller utilized this information to find his daughter that didn’t lead him down such dark paths. But because there was a strand of positive reinforcement for his barbarism, he proceeded. Alex was needlessly hurt, and Keller darkened his soul for nothing. This is what happens when you allow “love” to motivate you to wickedness. The kidnappers represent the ultimate fulfillment of this: they started this campaign out of retribution to God for taking their own child. Their “love” for their child mutated them into horrible creatures who commit horrible acts.
It is interesting to ponder whether in-universe God is considering Keller’s repeated attempts at prayer through all this. Maybe he is motivated by protecting his little girl, but his actions have been anything but godly, and this would disqualify him for heavenly aid.
But Keller eventually offers another kind of prayer once he is in his figurative and literal pit of despair, after his daughter’s kidnapper has him buried alive in her backyard. This time, he’s not trying to excuse his actions anymore. He makes no pretense about sanctifying his efforts. All he asks is, “protect my girl.” And it appears that this prayer was heard. Loki is able to follow Keller’s trail and rescue his daughter before she can be killed.
The film’s ultimate statement on Keller’s actions is complicated. His efforts did, after all, eventually lead them to find to find his daughter. But he does get to pay a price for his savagery. It is understood that if Loki ends up hearing his whistle and rescues him from the ground, Keller will likely do jail time. But because there was genuine love at the base of all this, his daughter was still able to be delivered, and there is a means by which he can atone for his sins.
