- The Vanishing (1993 film)
Infobox_Film
name = The Vanishing
director =George Sluizer
producer =Larry Brezner
Pieter Jan Brugge
writer =Tim Krabbé
Todd Graff
starring =Jeff Bridges Kiefer Sutherland Nancy Travis
music =Jerry Goldsmith
distributor =20th Century Fox
released =February 5 ,1993
runtime = 109 min.
language = English
budget =
amg_id = 1:52213
imdb_id = 0108473"The Vanishing" is a 1993 thriller starring
Jeff Bridges ,Kiefer Sutherland ,Nancy Travis , andSandra Bullock . It is an American English-language version of a 1988 Franco-Dutch film of the same name, also directed byGeorge Sluizer . Both films were based on the novel "The Golden Egg " byTim Krabbé . The original name for the film was to be called "Saw" (nothing to do with this decades horror films) but was changed during the wrap ups for production.Plot
Jeff Harriman's (
Kiefer Sutherland ) girlfriend Diane Shaver (Sandra Bullock ) vanishes at a gas station, with no trace of her left behind. Three years later, and with a new (frustrated) girlfriend, Rita Baker (Nancy Travis ), in tow, Jeff is still obsessed with finding out what happened. Barney Cousins (Jeff Bridges ) arrives and admits that he was responsible for the disappearance. Cousins promises to show Jeff what happened to Diane, but only if he agrees to go through the exact same thing she did.In a short series of flash-backs, the build-up to the crime is shown. Jeff is taken to the gas station where his lover went missing, and is told that if he drinks a cup of coffee, which has been drugged, he will discover her fate by experiencing it. He does, and wakes up to find he is being buried alive. (This is where the story ends in the original Dutch version of the film.)
Rita has traced him and his abductor to the area, and discovers just in time what has happened. She gets Cousins to drink drugged coffee by talking about his daughter, but does not realize the drug takes fifteen minutes to take effect. She goes in search of Jeff, but is thwarted at the last minute by Cousins. Fortunately, Jeff has revived and is able to climb out of the now slightly destroyed grave and kill his tormentor, beating Cousins to death with the shovel he had used to bury Diane. When Jeff and Rita hug each other, Jeff sees Diane's grave and decides to forget about it.
The film ends with the couple back together, selling the story as a novel to a publishing company.
Reception
The film received a mixed reaction from critics, with many lampooning the happy ending as tacky, Hollywood fare. Wrote film critic
Roger Ebert ::"The Vanishing" is a textbook exercise in the trashing of a nearly perfect film, conducted oddly enough under the auspices of the man who directed it... The ending of the original "Vanishing" is of a piece with the rest of the film. It is organically necessary to it. No other ending will do. That is why this Hollywood remake is so obscene." [cite web
last=Ebert
first=Roger
authorlink=Roger Ebert
title=rogerebert.com :: Reviews :: The Vanishing
url=http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19930205/REVIEWS/302050304/1023
publisher=Chicago Sun-Times
accessdate=2008-01-12]Awards
aturn Award
* 1994 - Best Actor -
Jeff Bridges ; Nominee
* 1994 - Best Horror Film; Nomineeee also
*
The Vanishing (1988 film) References
External links
*
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