Clifton Hill

My favorite part was Abby's character. I enjoyed watching a person with a background of crazy stories and lies trying to convince people she solved a mystery from over 20 years ago. This film truly kept me on the edge of my seat.

The third (but first recognized) directional feature by Albert Shin, "Disappearance at Clifton Hill", provides a subtle but effective slow-burning small town mystery / psychological drama / modern noir thriller, albeit one that's potential is only half realized. With great attention for detail (and a little less for the bigger picture), competent performances, intriguing setting & atmospheric cinematography and sound design "Disappearance at Clifton Hill" should please the fans of oddball indie thrillers. This is, in its structure and essence, more or less, a standard mystery, but a good one, with bonus style points. The small town - faded town backdrop adds another point, and so does the pleasantly complicated and conflicted lead character of Abby, portrayed by Tuppence Middleton. The story is intriguing and compelling enough, but starts to fizzle out a bit towards the end with the screenwriters pulling a minor clutch with the very last scene. Throughout the movie, Abby sometimes connects the dots too easily and some moments in the rather serious and morbid story should have felt a little heavier than they did. You could say "Disappearance at Clifton Hill" pulls a few punches. Nevertheless, director Albert Shin knows how to orchestrate this symphony and every scene feels careful, peculiar, atmosphere-rich. Despite the never dissatisfactory eccentric detail and all the tasty, subtle flavor, the movie frequently tends to get lost in itself, resulting in "the bigger picture" being overly convoluted on surface while actually being relatively flat below. Technical side doesn't disappoint though, the original score by Alex Sowinski and Leland Whitty works wonders and is a major player in achieving the movie's peculiar atmosphere. The cinematography earns a compliment or two as well, "Disappearance at Clifton Hill" manages to excel at visually portraying a historically glowing, but faded and decaying community with a sparkle of unfamiliar nostalgia here and there. The audiovisual and aesthetical work on this movie rests on the level which I simply call top tier indie stuff. In the end "Disappearance at Clifton Hill" stays above average and just more to impress with than to underwhelm with. Definitely recommended to the fans of indie mysteries, oddball thrillers and small town hurts. My rating:

The atmosphere is great, the story captivating, with tension building up. Unfortunately, things get messed up with the main character's backstory. I still didn't get the ending of this movie. Anyone to help me understand who actually did what ? i cannot find any answer online as everyone else seems to be confused...

I didn't like main character and wanted to smack her.

I persevered, I really did, because I thought either it would get better or I'd get it. Alas, it all went so unsatisfactorily ambiguous at the end.

Here's a film with great ingredients: unfortunately all of them from different genres and mixed together as if at random. Essentially a detective story, in which a young woman, returning to her hometown, remembers witnessing a crime when still a child, it quickly takes a series of inexplicable turns until it loses direction and energy and ends as a mess with a truly awful gimmick final scene. Central to the film's many problems are the inept direction which often entirely fails to explain how the plot gets from A to B, preferring instead to chain-link the dead-ends and anomalies by drawing attention to the psychological and mental problems of its unreliable main character. She's off her head, the movie seems to say, so the details don't matter. Well, sorry, but they do, or at least they should. For a movie with a genuinely intriguing and promising first half, it's hard to believe how utterly it has fallen apart by about ten minutes into part two, and, sadly, harder still to care. There's an interesting indie movie here about pressure to conform and perform, about the spiral of mental ill-health and the substitute narratives we weave when the world disappoints us, or we disappoint it. But this is not that movie. Far from it. There's a cameo by David Cronenberg, some truly great locations, mostly decent acting (and some very hammy acting by the duo playing 90's magicians The Magnificent Moulins), but, unfortunately, a script that shouldn't have been given a second read-through let alone a full production. In here too, as another viewer points out, is a story about child abuse that, in the movie's gimmicky end, may have been another meaningless illusion or confusion. That cop-out in its own makes this very poor offering a bit of an insult. Do yourself a favour. Go to bed early with a book instead.

It supposed to be a thriller about a boy being kidnapped. But it's tonaly all over the place. There's moments I'd swear were going for comedy. The ott magicians are too light for a thriller. The shockingly dodgy wigs and facial hair trying to deage people back to the 90s and then having a young guy playing an old guy in a wheel chair. David Cronnenbergs whole performance was a laughable mess too. The lead actress is fine though, she does what she can to make it all seem at least coherent, only just though.

This movie kept my interest and attention for the entire duration so that's a positive thing. However I like mystery movies with a clear ending, an ending where I don't have to guess what really happened. I want clear answers on every question I have and unfortunately this was not the case with this movie. It felt like they couldn't be bothered to make it a nice ending, there were also some elements they completely neglected by the end and you start to wonder why they even brought them up during the movie. So to me whilst it was entertaining it clearly could and should have been better. Mysteries should start with an intriguing beginning, continue with a suspenseful middle, and end with the mystery completely solved, that's how a mystery movie is the most effective and that's how the gems in this genre are made. All in all the acting wasn't bad, the story was interesting, the cinematography was also okay but still it's a missed opportunity to make it a movie that stands out from the rest.

This is a complete waste of time. Dull, boring, annoying & you just wished it would end. I stuck with it thinking it would liven up. No. It didn't.

I never leave reviews for movies but my god avoid this! I had to turn it off 20 mins before the end it is just not engaging at all. You have no care for the boy that went missing, no back story so dull!