Vanished into the Night: the thriller that is blowing up on Netflix

In Vanished into the Night Riccardo Scamarcio and Annabelle Wallis are a couple going through a divorce who must decide the custody of their children. At the negotiation table, the situation seems calm, almost amicable. They support each other despite the separation. There is only one issue on which the already drifting relationship tilts: the protagonist wants to return to America and resume the life she left before moving to Italy, in the beautiful Puglia, where her ex-husband was supposed to open his Masseria. A dream she herself invested her money in, while the man tried to make up for past mistakes of vices and gambling. However, everything takes a turn for the worse when the two children disappear into thin air. First lying in bed at the father's house, then abducted by someone who, on the phone, demands a ransom of 150,000 euros.

The film by Renato De Maria, who returns to work with Scamarcio after The Ruthless and who now sees Netflix as the base for his works (including the previous Let’s Rob the Duce), is a remake of the Argentine film The Secrets of the Seventh Floor, a 2013 work starring Ricardo Darín. The film has shot to the top of the platform’s rankings, confirming three things. The first is that the thriller genre always has a particular appeal to the audience, especially in streaming. Italian cinema is not limited to the cinema hall alone; in fact, it might work even better on streaming platforms. Lastly, while the star system does not determine box office results, it can conversely persuade the home audience to give the proposed titles a chance, where this time there is a mix of a local star (Scamarcio) with an international face (Wallis) who ranges from the world of series (Peaky Blinders) to the genre horror cinema (Annabelle, The Mummy, Malignant).

Vanished into the Night also has an advantage. Unlike many commercial products, and unfortunately with some frequency, hastily put together to replace some catalog entries, it presents a certain sophistication, and clarity in direction, writing, and acting that makes it simple, accessible, and concise. It has no excesses or melodramatic scenes; it has a narrative that revolves around the disappearance of the children and the desperate search for a father. This is its strength, but also the source of the film’s greater flatness. By taking all the time needed to plant the clues that will later aim to reconstruct the moves of every piece in the film, the story lingers in bringing about twists and discoveries that could have made the narrative more dynamic much earlier, instead of waiting until the last minutes to see the world of Scamarcio's protagonist overturned.

It is as if the film operated with the same caution that the man uses to recover his children. Neither daring nor challenging the viewer, but allowing them to stay seated and watch, with some interest, but never provoked or intrigued by the events. The characters’ actions are deliberate, but it is hard not to find them equally anonymous. It almost feels like everything runs too smoothly, even amidst the upheavals the parent will face in just two days. It is a well-done and better than often found cinema, but that doesn’t mean one isn’t aware of having to settle. An innocuous thriller, that distracts little. One that might be recalled in broad terms in a few years, perhaps remembering having seen it, but never able to recall the details.