- After being abducted as children, and suffering years of abuse, a teenage boy and girl find themselves living on the street.
- An 8-year-old girl is taken from her home and convinced that her family does not want her anymore. After enduring years of horror, she and her fellow victim are dumped by their capturers. Now, 17 years old and no one to turn to except each other, they do their best to survive life on the streets, until one day she finally accepts the help of a shelter counselor to find her way home. However, what she truly finds is the love of her life and that you can never go back. "Gardens of the Night", is a haunting, gritty and topical story which delves deep into the world of child abduction and where it often leads... for the "lucky ones." The writer/director, Damian Harris bases his story on the kids, counselors, cops and pimps he met during two years of research.—Anonymous
- At the age of eight, a young girl named Leslie (Gillian Jacobs) is kidnapped by Alex (Tom Arnold), and Frank (Kevin Zegers). Alex tricks her into helping him find his dog Trixie, then takes her to school; during the ride, he pretends that her father is his boss, thus earning her trust. After school, Alex and Frank find her again; they lure her into their car with a story about her dad being in trouble. Then they drug her and take her to their house. Alex tells her that her parents do not want her anymore. As proof, he provides a phone number to her "father's cell phone" (actually just a pay phone), and when her repeated calls are unanswered, she eventually accepts his story. She and another victim, a young boy named Donny, are forced into prostitution and child-pornography. Alex is very protective and fatherly to them, which adds to her confusion. Their clientele include men in positions of authority, such as a court judge, and they are told that they are lucky to be with such good and honorable men. As a coping mechanism, Donny and Leslie pretend they are in an imaginary world based on the stories of Mowgli and the Jungle Book. One day, Leslie goes to a convenience store, where it becomes apparent that her parents are looking for her, due to the fact that her picture is on milk cartons. Leslie doesn't see the cartons, thus preserving her notion that her parents don't want her, but an owner of the store recognizes her, and alerts the police to her presence in the neighborhood. The police show up at Alex and Frank's house, and the two kidnappers hastily escape with the children.
The story picks up years later, with Leslie and Donny together, living a hand to mouth existence. Leslie is prostituting herself, and as a way to move away from this, she tries to lure a young teen living in a shelter into a prostitution ring. Donny has fallen in love with her, but Leslie is very confused because while she loves and cares for him, he as always acted as a brother and companion to her, and never as a lover. She goes to the shelter in an attempt to win the girl's trust and turn her out as a prostitute, but at the last minute she has a change of heart and returns the girl to the shelter. The counselor (John Malkovich) discovers her true identity and tells her that her parents have been looking for her all these years, which she finally realizes is true.
Leslie reunites with her parents and attempts to return home, however, she is too scarred from her life on the street and cannot remain in such a normal atmosphere. She leaves in the middle of the night and hitchhikes to Florida, hoping to re-unite with Donnie. [D-Man2010]
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