VANISHED INTO THE NIGHT/ SVANITI NELLA NOTTE

Italy, 2024, 92 minutes, Colour.

Riccardo Scamarcio, Annabelle Wallis, Massimiliano Gallo, Gaia Coletti, Lorenzo Ferrante..

Directed by Renato de Maria.

The Italian title of this thriller indicates that children vanished during the night – but the English title is somewhat evocative, that they vanished into the night.

The film focuses on a couple, long married, he Italian and something of a gambler, she American with medical and psychological qualifications. But, there are in process of divorce. They are both devoted to their children.

While the children are with their father for an evening, they disappear. He is frantic, receives a ransom note, confers with his wife, agrees to do a job for a long time friend who is a drug dealer, sailing his boat across to the Greek coast, collecting the drugs. On the way back, his engine gives out, the Coast Guard help him, and he rushes to meet the deadline for the ransom money.

But, there is a significant twist in what actually happened about the kidnapping, the children appearing and reacting quite normally when their father returns.

Brief, good performances from the leads, and an interesting twist (which, of course, some might have anticipated).

1. The title, the Italian indicating “during the night”? The English indicating disappearance “into the night”?
2. The Italian setting, the vistas of the city of Bari, the city centre, homes and streets, the coast, the Adriatic, the Greek coast and restaurant? The musical score?
3. The mystery of the disappearance of the children? Suspects? Ransom? Audiences mystified – receiving what had happened?
4. Marriage, the background, her medical qualifications, psychological qualifications? American? The marriage to Pietro, Italian, his gambling? The two children, their care for them?
5. The divorce proceedings, bitter elements, custody issues?
6. The sequences of each parent with the children, love for the children, the children and their liveliness?
7. The children with their father, spending the night, his watching the football, the disappearance, his search, desperate, his wife, her arrival? Her anger with him? The ransom note, €150,000 asked?
8. The friendship with Nicola, suspicious? Pietro and his going to Nicola, the arrangement for the money, the promise, his having to sail to Greece, the restaurant, the advice, the drugs, bring them back, the cash?
9. The voyage, the restaurant, the kindly waiter, no contact, the boat, the two men, the drugs, checking the sale, giving the cash? Pietro hiding it? Going back to Italy, the engine failure, the Coast Guard, their arrival, fixing the boat, accompanying the boat? Pietro desperate, the phone calls, running, the bus, to Nicola, his being drunk, crowded, his taunting Pietro? The fight, giving him the money?
10. Pietro returning home, the capture case in the toilet, his suspicions, confronting his wife?
11. Her plan, drugging the children, returning them, her plan for the divorce, for custody in America? The confrontation at the airport, his threats, the reaction of the children? His taking them back home – and his wife reappearing? A future?