Lifetime
Does every movie that airs on Lifetime actually have a different title than the one they broadcast them under? This week’s new thriller is screened under the silly — and in need of punctuation — title Vanished Out of Sight. Try finding that movie on IMDb. Nope, you won’t because it’s listed under its real title, Blind River, which makes a bit more sense but not much. (Of course at some point someone is bound to update the listing with the broadcast title.)
Whatever this movie is called stars Annalise Basso as Claire Moyer, a young, blind, single mother to five-year-old daughter Briar. It’s Christmas Day (which would have made it better suited to LMN’s ‘Slay Bells’ themed movies) and Claire’s boyfriend Beck (Tracy Campbell) has come for the day bearing gifts including a bike for Briar (Avalon Reign) and … an engagement ring for Claire. Which totally freaks her out (she has a hard time accepting help from others, determined to do everything herself even though she’s blind but can’t even let Briar ride her new bike without someone else supervising). Put off by her reaction, Beck leaves and Briar ends up going to her friend’s house across the field. Told to be back home by dinner, Briar does return but Claire is in the shower where she hears a weird squeaking sound but continues to bathe. She sets dinner out and calls to have Briar sent home but Claire is told Briar left an hour ago. Cue the panic. The neighbors and police begin a search but turn up nothing, and Claire’s guide dog also goes missing.
Suspicion falls on Beck, but there are also some other red herrings in the town including a man who looks like Santa Claus (and refuses to acknowledge Beck’s Christmas greeting) and a registered sex offender who has been living at his late father’s house while he cleans the place out. Oh, it’s also right across the street from a school. Beck assures Claire he has nothing to do with Briar’s disappearance and he even finds a name tag in Claire’s living room from a local hardware store where sex offender Abel (Wynn Reichert) also works. Even armed with this incriminating evidence, Claire refuses to go to the police because she believes the sheriff, Walker Donley (Steven Ogg), won’t pursue the lead. By this point, Beck has also disappeared right after a traffic stop conducted by officer Reece Miller (Denise Smolarek), and his car is later found with Briar’s belongings in the trunk. Claire then sets out on her own, blind and with no guide dog, gallivanting around the town with the assistance of her phone’s GPS guiding her … until she drops it in the river. But the sound of the river brings back memories of the time she was raped — five years ago — and even more memories hit her after deputy Hooper Miller (Jay Huguley), son of Reece, tries to give her a ride home, demanding he let her out of the car. That squeaking she heard earlier was also a trigger. She informs the sheriff that she now knows who raped her, and she again sets off to save Briar while, again, totally blind.
I boldly proclaimed LMN’s Dressed to Kill as the certain worst film of the year, but Lifetime has already proven me wrong with Vanished Out of Sight (at least Dressed to Kill was stupid enough to be watchable … like a trainwreck). Interestingly, January is usually considered a dumping ground for theatrical films the studios know will tank but it looks like the TV networks are giving the cinemas a ruin for their money in the bad movie department (time for the Razzie Awards to branch out to TV). Why is Vanished Out of Sight so bad? Mainly because it insults the intelligence of its audience — I mean Claire is basically Marvel’s Daredevil the way she gets around without her sight — and it drags for an interminable 89 minutes (minus commercials). And then throwing in the rape subplot is gross, while the reason for the kidnapping, and probably Beck being ignored by Santa-guy, is just vile racism (which is, of course, a subject a lot of Americans don’t like to be confronted with but it doesn’t need to be a tacked on plot point in a fictional drama).
The cast does the best with what they have to work with. Annalise Basso really gives it her all, pretty convincingly playing a blind woman even if she does manage to navigate her home and the town, even areas she doesn’t normally walk, with more ease than she should (we’ll blame writer/director Carissa Stutzman for all that nonsense — and also for making Basso shriek ‘Briar’ about 947 times). Campbell should have played Beck less suspiciously, and having him storm off after the engagement ring reaction just made no sense. Like, these two adults can’t even have a conversation? How are they ever going to have a meaningful relationship? Steven Ogg plays the sheriff convincingly, and any fans of the Snowpiercer TV series will be surprised and thrilled to see Ogg and co-star Basso reunited on screen here. Smolarek does manage to convey some concern as she’s taking a statement from Claire but her character takes a complete 180 degree turn that comes out of left field. The rest of the actors are fine, but really aren’t given enough to build their performances on, particularly Huguley who becomes a key player at the last minute.
Besides some of the ridiculous plotting and bizarre character turns and plot developments, the movie’s biggest sin is that it’s just boring. And frustrating because Stutzman, in her feature directing debut, seems to think her script is smarter than the audience watching. It’s hard to rag on someone’s first major project but perhaps Stutzman can develop her storytelling and directing skills over time. As it stands, Vanished Out of Sight just wastes a talented cast on a pedestrian production.
Vanished Out of Sight has a run time of 1 hour 29 minutes, and is rated TV-14.
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