THE VANISHING (1993)
[Spoilers]
A film review by Tanja Rosteck
Copyright 1993 Tanja Rosteck
Well, I caught the opening of THE VANISHING last night. I haven't seen the original European film yet, but I imagine it's infinitely :^) better than this Hollywood remake.
I found the characters to be flat, without substance, especially Barney (Jeff Bridges). Perhaps the whole point of his character was that you weren't *supposed* to understand it, but if that was the director's intention, it certainly wasn't successful.
The first two-thirds of the movie were incredibly slow--not the good kind of slow, where you can feel the tension building for the movie's climax, but the bad kind of slow, where you just sit back and have to say, "God, get on with it, will you?"
The relationship between Rita, the waitress, and Jeff was also completely without substance. There was no chemistry between them whatsoever, and although I wasn't quite sure how long they had been involved before moving in together, the way they related to each other was like complete strangers. Again, perhaps this was intentional, since it was necessary to the plot for Jeff to keep his big secret from her, but it also wasn't successful.
The role of Barney's family was pretty unnecessary, except that there had to be a daughter so that the ending could turn out the way it did. Apart from that, there was almost no point in introducing them in the first place. There was potential there, however, to have his family play a more important and developed role, especially with regards to what motivated Barney to commit his crimes, and especially go to with the "go past the edge" theme. But again, no development here, and the "what's the point?" feeling came back.
Spoilers:
But the worst part had to be the ending. Apart from being gratuitously bloody and revengeful, it was completely predictable, very Hollywood. What really got me at the end was that Jeff, having gotten out of his burial box with the help of Rita and having killed (presumably) Barney, simply looked at a nearby mound (coffin-shaped mound, like his was), assumed that it was Diane that was buried there, and looked relieved. I couldn't quite grasp this. Here he had spent the past three or four years looking for Diane, not knowing anything about how she vanished, where she was, whether she was alive or dead, and how she had died (if she had), and the "not-knowing" was supposed to be the driving force of his life up until that point. He also knows that Barney had tried to capture other women. So, it could have been anyone buried in that mound--why didn't Jeff look, just to be sure? Wouldn't it rest his conscience, as well as relieve his curiosity, to just dig up the mound and make sure it *was* her? I think that if they had done that, it would also have cemented the ending of the movie. (But that's another Hollywood thing--you always have to leave room for a sequel.)
On the positive side, the music was great (especially the requisite "thriller music" during the scary parts), and the scenery of Washington State was also fabulous. I think it would have been much more effective had the gas station/ MiniMart been in a really remote section of highway, with forests and mountains all around, to give a real sense of "vanishing into nowhere." Where she *did* vanish in the movie was pretty populated--one McDonalds, a Dairy Queen, plus a couple of gas stations and *lots* of people around. Too much hustle and bustle to be effective.
All in all, I'd give this movie a 5 out of 10.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Tanja Rosteck -- Concordia University, Montreal, K-bec, Canada E-mail -- ts_rost@pavo.concordia.ca
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