Wednesday 24 May 2023

Disappearance at Clifton Hill - 2019 film review


I have vivid memories of my one and only trip to Niagara Falls. It was on a coach trip from the Toronto Bouchercon a few years back and although the weather was a bit iffy, the company was splendid and the Falls were magnificent. Since then I've enjoyed watching the old film Niagara and now I've also taken a look at a recent movie set around the Falls - Disappearance at Clifton Hill

The story begins with a family outing in rural Canada. A young girl is shocked to see a boy with a patch over one eye, who is clearly terrified. Then she witnesses his abduction. She tells the story, but nobody believes her. We then fast forward to the present. The girl is Abby, played by none other than Tuppence Middleton. Her sister is Laure (Hannah Gross). Their parents have died and a rather slimy lawyer has brokered a deal under which they sell their failing motel to a family called Lake, who own most of the little town.

Abby has gained a reputation, not least with her sister, for being a compulsive liar, so when she starts to reinvestigate the mysterious abduction, she gets little sympathy from anyone. A local conspiracy theorist called David Bell (David Cronenberg, perhaps better known as a director), seems more helpful. He is deeply suspicious of the Lakes and soon Abby discovers a connection between the boy she saw and a pair of stage magicians called the Magnificent Moulins.

The plot thickens nicely from then on. This is a well-made film and it boasts a final twist that came as a genuine surprise to me. Often these days, movie twists of that kind are rather meretricious but on the whole I think this one works well. This isn't as renowned a film as, say, Shutter Island, but I enjoyed it at least as much.

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