[Rating: Minor Rock Fist Up]
In theaters and VOD January 7.
A low-budget thriller that makes excellent use of the limited resources it has on-hand, See For Me is better than it has any right to be, and only stumbles once it burns through the little narrative goodwill it has to spare. Little more than an interesting elevator pitch (blind girl deals with home intruders), the script by Adam Yorke and Tommy Gushue imbues the effort with fantastic creativity, taking the story and its lead in directions no one could predict. And while the result works for the larger story, it leaves the audience with a guide that’s often hard to root for, forcing the movie to go out with a whimper instead of a bang.
The script and director Randall Okita wisely doesn’t rush through its first act, which does double-duty setting up the story’s conceit, but also several character quirks that are there for more than just show. Sophie (Skyler Davenport) is 18-ish and lives in upstate New York, where she resides with her mom and earns extra cash housesitting (and stealing from her clients). Formerly a promising under-18 Olympic hopeful, she’s now legally blind, yet on her way to a multi-day gig out in the countryside, where she heads after brushing off pleas from her mom to take it easier.
Defiant to a fault, yet willing to milk whatever sympathy she can to continue her grifting, Sophie occasionally gets help from a friend, Cam (Keaton Kaplan), who acts as her eyes via FaceTime, yet he no longer wants any part in her thievery. With this crutch gone, Sophie finds that she’s not as independent as she’d supposed: a fact that becomes painfully clear when intruders break into the house she’s watching one evening. Unsure of what to do, Sophie falls back on a new phone app that connects blind people to sighted users in other parts of the country. Sophie’s stranger guide, Kelly (Jessica Parker Kennedy), makes for a great pair of loaner eyes, yet even this assist only gets the former Olympic hopeful so far, forcing her to play cat and mouse with a crew of criminals in a quiet, dark house.
It’s tense as hell, and takes a few not at all expected turns that develop not just Sophie, but the world she and the movie lives in. Indeed, these aren’t just twists to keep the audience off-balance (which they do), they build on what is already established about the characters and their set-ups. See For Me has an internal logic compass that keeps it pointing north despite the detours, holding the narrative on-course during a couple of developments that really do reach through the screen and smack a viewer.
What’s more, it looks fantastic, and incorporates the precise sound design and low-light elements of the setting into the narrative fabric of the story. It’s easy to slip into Sophie’s shoes as an audience member as she tries to (literally) blindly make her way through a house that is not her own, hiding from dangerous intruders, all while using a bright smartphone that might as well be a flashing traffic signal stapled to her forehead. Again, though, the script never leans into expectation, almost always zigging when one would expect it to zag, taking Sophie and everyone else on a hell of a ride.
And while the strokes are bold and inspired, the film regrettably runs out of canvas for them before long. Sophie’s journey, while delightfully surprising and full of inspired twists, never answers for the terrible shit that she gets up to in this one. It doesn’t spoil anything to say that Sophie is an abrasive, greedy, and morally bankrupt person at the start of this thing, and two of those things remain true when the final credits roll.
As an audience it is easy to put all of this aside when the movie’s primal fight-or-flight elements all but demand that the viewer take her side, yet when that tension subsides, one is left with a kind of crumby “hero” that never gets the redemption the film seems to presume. Which sucks, because this one gets damn close to pulling all of its elements together to craft a clever, visceral, efficient, and engaging movie. Like the Olympic athlete Sophie hoped to be before she lost her sight, the movie executes on a near-flawless routine only to fudge the landing at the very end.
Which is to say that for most of its run-time (say, 90%), See For Me is an outstanding movie and a whole heap of fun. Plagued with a main character problem and some clunky exposition, the sum of its parts amounts to a surprisingly good time. Davenport is sturdy in the lead role, ably communicating the terrified desperation and insolent resilience necessary for the part, though special mention should go out to the always-reliable Kim Coates, who comes in off the top rope in a few short but critical scenes to put the finishing touches on the movie. Like Sophie, See For Me does pretty damn well for itself considering its handicaps (tight budget, limited locations, small cast, etc.), and overachieves even if not entirely perfect. Not bad for a movie or a person, really.
“Obvious Child” is the debut novel of Warren Cantrell, a film and music critic based out of Seattle, Washington. Mr. Cantrell has covered the Sundance and Seattle International Film Festivals, and provides regular dispatches for Scene-Stealers and The Playlist. Warren holds a B.A. and M.A. in History, and his hobbies include bourbon drinking, novel writing, and full-contact kickboxing.
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