Disappearance at Clifton Hill Film Review (2020): Not Rated – (too weird?)
Subtitle: A mystery morality play set in Niagara Falls
Genre: mystery, psychological
Who to look for:
Abby (Tuppence Middleton) coming home to Niagara Falls
Laure (Hannah Gross) – the good sister – stable job, married
Walter (David Cronenberg) – fun. He dives in the lake off Niagara Falls to find treasures, and talks about mysteries & suicides in his podcast. Also owns (?) a diner called The Flying Saucer, which I’d love to visit!
Charlie Lake (Eric Johnson) – Handsome bad guy – the developer. UGH, nasty work.
A pair of magicians
A pair of tiger trainers
Director: Albert Shin
Once Upon a Time…
Both Rotten Tomatoes and Google use the same plot line: A troubled young woman returns to her hometown of Niagara Falls, where the memory of a long-ago kidnapping quickly ensnares her. Who’s copying who here, guys?
My pitch: A dishonest woman tries to escape her past behavior by solving a real-life mystery.
Let’s take a closer look at the beginning: A troubled young woman…TROUBLED? Very pc. She’s a freaking LIAR. So gross. Note to self: never write a script with a protagonist who lies. the Audience will hate her. We need to trust him or her, even if she has a secret or two.
Abby comes back to town when her mother passes away. She co-owns a run-down motel with her sister. (I was hoping this might be like Bates Motel, but no such luck.) Old memories surface: when she was little, she witnessed a boy being snatched away in a car. Can she solve the mystery now?
She’s having a drink in her own motel bar when a dude comes in & they chat. They go back to her room to do more than chat. While they undress, she mumbles that she is a virgin. He jumps back like she said she has Covid. Really. She curls up in a ball.
So the whole rest of the movie I waited to see why she was still a 40-year old virgin. Was the sight of that one boy so traumatic for her?
She digs into old records, interviews witnesses still alive, argues with her sister and the new buyer of the motel, Charlie Lake. She meets lots of colorful circus-type weirdos. Walter is the only one I liked.
By the first half hour, I knew this was a terrible movie. But I wanted to see why she was unable to have sex…, so I kept watching…
An interesting interview with the director and writer, Albert Shin, here. He says he saw something similar when he was little. Maybe.
QUESTIONS and SPOILERS
Eventually we find out that Abby disappeared for over a year to some midwestern city, and her sister wonders what happened to her during that time. Turns out, Abby told so many lies that they committed her. That’s what they do to liars in the US. (Did I mention this is a Canadian movie?) Then they banned her from ever coming back to the US!
As scriptwriters know, this is the pivot point: the protagonist is down so low, she has to come back up. So with the help of an invalid in a wheelchair, Abby plants evidence to get some people arrested for the death of that young boy: the handsome Charlie Lake and the boy’s parents, the Magical Moulins. Or else the tiger handlers. Not sure.
In the last scene, Abby is again working behind the counter of a hotel. Her own, refurbished? That of the handsome bad developer? Not clear. Somewhere still in Niagara Falls. And in comes a man with an eyepatch like the boy she saw so many years ago. And he says she is wrong, and the accused man didn’t kill him, but saved him.
So Abby’s fake evidence and lies put the wrong people behind bars. I’m sure it won’t be her last lie, however.
Other Audience Reviews
Google: 2.0. 🙂 That is pretty bad! Most of the complaints were about the score. I don’t notice music that much, so can’t comment on that.
i've seen worse movies, but this one was quite terrible as well.
And:
I literally finished watching this movie 5 minutes ago, and then had to resort to websites reviewing and explaining it. Talk about disjointed and confusing.
Roger Ebert: 2 stars, also! (Or should I say, thumbs up?) He describes the movie as “pulpy.”
A guy named Singh (Andy McQueen) who Abby meets at a bar when she gets into town turns out to be a police officer that she has to plead to days later; her sister Laure works at a casino which later helps Abby get more information about someone who could be involved. You just go along with it, but at the same time it’s not all that cute, either.
Then
…she successfully creates a mystery box character out of someone that we would normally not question.
I have no idea what that last means. She’s a liar and mentally disturbed. We should question everything.
From Amazon:
This is a mystery movie with multiple twists and turns that leave the protagonist and the people around here questioning her sanity.
It was filmed in multiple locations familiar to regular Niagara Falls visitors.
and
Mum said good
That’s a Wrap
Plot holes, unfinished characters, and no romance to soften the edges.
Oh, and it wasn’t until afterward that I realized I had watched the whole thing, wanting to find out why she was still a virgin, and I realized she lied about THAT, too. So mad! Can’t recommend at all. One star.
What did you think?
Set painter in studio Art Depts. Member Scriptwriters Network, script analyst.
Author, 2 hardcopy books, Barnes & Noble Calendar.
- Emma in the Night ~ Wendy Walker ~ Thriller - May 11, 2023
- Still Alice (2014) ~ Psychology Movie Review ~ Julianne Moore - January 25, 2023
- The Other Emily ~ Dean Koontz - January 23, 2023
