The Vanishing

Now I understand the anxiety and full-body-rocking I've seen a girlfriend experience when watching a suspense that tickles her particular worry, e.g., marriage, fertility, infertility, post-season candy sales. It is difficult to watch the helplessness Rex suffers for. years. searching for the super-cute Saskia, his missing girlfriend, wife? (He calls her his wife at first, and his friend 3 years later.) It is so difficult I can almost, but not quite, understand his late-3rd act choice.

Incidentally, this movie was released abroad as "The Man Who Had to Know," which I find is a much clearer title than "The Vanishing." The vanishing, so to speak, takes place in the 1st act, and we're left to puzzle out the psychodrama for the remainder of the picture. Knowing going in that we're following "the man who had to know," would make the whole affair seem a bit less anticlimactic. Just a thought, still, a solidly intense, creepy movie. You'll never see a chin beard quite the same way again. Skip the remake.