The problem with Ben Affleck

Why do so many people dislike Ben Affleck? Kaleem Aftab braves the disdain of others to meet the debutant director

Ben Affleck is well aware of the negativity circling him. It's unavoidable when the lampooning is so open ? an episode of South Park depicted Affleck as a wooden hand and commented that his "face is as flat as a pancake"

At passport control at the Eurostar terminal, I'm asked why I'm going to Paris. I tell the controller that I'm on my way to interview Ben Affleck, and his response is one that many people have when the Boston-born actor crops up in conversation: "Can you please tell him that he's a terrible actor!"

I defend Affleck by telling the man he's in for a pleasant surprise if he sees Affleck's directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone. The thriller is based on the novel by Mystic River author Dennis Lehane. It starts with the abduction of a young girl whose redneck single mother clearly struggles with the responsibility of bringing up a child.

Affleck's younger brother Casey plays a private investigator, Patrick Kenzie, called in to investigate by the girl's aunt, who fears the police are not doing enough. Similarities to the Madeleine McCann case ensured that this film sat on the shelf for nearly a year awaiting a UK release.

On the way to meet the director, I mull over why Affleck attracts such venom. Once, it seemed the world was at his feet. He and his best friend Matt Damon wrote and starred in Good Will Hunting. Their reward was a Best Screenplay Oscar and a passport to an A-list acting career in Hollywood. Damon's reputation took off, but Affleck had a knack of picking dud flicks; Pearl Harbor, Armageddon and Daredevil are on his CV. But the real opprobrium began when the actor started dating Jennifer Lopez, and people chose to forget that Affleck had shown his acting qualities in several films by Kevin Smith, Shakespeare in Love and Richard Linklater's teen classic Dazed and Confused.

The adventures of "Bennifer" were a staple in the media. The couple even insisted on acting together – the resulting film, Gigli, was panned and quickly gained a reputation as one of the worst films in history. When their relationship hit the rocks, Smith even thought it prudent to cut scenes of the couple getting married from his ill-received comedy Jersey Girl. It seemed that everything Affleck touched turned into box-office poison.

Then, at the Venice Film Festival in 2006, Allen Coulter's film about the mysterious death of the actor George Reeves, Hollywoodland, was screened and Affleck picked up the prestigious Best Actor prize. His troubles seemed over: he hooked up with the actress Jennifer Garner after they met on the set of Daredevil, and they have a daughter. And he decided it was time to sit in the director's chair.

Affleck says: "What attracted me to the book [Gone Baby Gone] was that it was a complicated story; it had a moral ambiguity and a complexity to the characters; it was about a rejection of the idea that there is a black and white, that you can banner people as good or bad and that you can diagnose people as such. I've really felt a strong negative reaction to that type of pigeonholing in my life, and when I came across this I really responded to how this book refused to do that to any of its characters."

[The Independent, Friday, 23 May 2008]