Film 48/52: The Vanishing (1993)


The all-star cast of The Vanishing (a remake of a French film from a few years prior) convinced us to select this title (we could probably write a blog just detailing the weekly process of elimination when it comes to picking what to watch!). 

Kiefer Sutherland plays a writer who's girlfriend (Sandra Bullock in an early film role) mysteriously disappears while they're stopped at a gas station while on vacation. He doesn't realize that she's been kidnapped by an eccentric man played by Jeff Bridges. He spends years searching for any information about her disappearance, when he meets and falls in love with a waitress played by Nancy Travis. After a few years, the abductor reaches out to the still obsessed boyfriend and offers to show him what happened to his girlfriend, step-by-step, and he can't help but agree to go along with it. While one might worry this would ultimately lead to his own death, his girlfriend is clued in to what's going on and takes matters into her own hands.

The film is okay, but I felt that it lacked much of the tension needed in a thriller like this to keep viewers on the edge of their seats. The first character we're introduced to is Bridges, and we see his workshopping a plan for abducting a woman (he later explains why, though I was reminded that it's sometimes more interesting not to know why people do that things they do). It's done so matter-of-factly that by the time he's actually trying, we know the first several attempts are going to fail simply because he hasn't yet encountered the stars of the film. And by the time it does happen, we're all so aware that Bullock's character is going to be abducted, it's not even a surprise. Contrasted with the similar opening to Breakdown, this setup is far less effective. 

Watching the film now, Sandra Bullock's presence seems like a Janet Leigh/Psycho surprise twist, given how quickly she's out of the picture. But this was still a few years before her star-making turn in Speed, so she was just a charismatic selection for the role. She's quite good in her limited screen time. Sutherland, on the other hand, while fine, appears to be just going through the motions, Bridges offers up yet another eccentric character from his vast body of work, although his affectations didn't seem so natural that I wasn't constantly aware that he was giving a performance. The real surprise for me was Nancy Travis, who I previously only thought of as a comedic actress. She's true to form when first introduced, but by the end of the film she delivered a surprising performance, saving what might have otherwise been a complete disappointment. 

While I'm glad to have seen it, I don't expect it will be one that we revisit any time soon,



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