Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Marcel Walz
Starring: Sarah French, Jed Rowen, Tyler Gallant, Ben Kaplan, Caroline Williams,
Thomas Haley, Sheri Davis, Jessica Galetti
Ever since Dorothy McGuire's mute heroine was menaced by a serial killer in
Robert Siodmak's 1946 thriller The Spiral Staircase, genre filmmakers have been giving us protagonists with disabilities. It's
a potential minefield, as in adopting a disabled hero or heroine a movie
runs the risk of coming off as exploitative and cruel. Most of such films
avoid this by having their protagonists turn their disability in their
favour, most notably Audrey Hepburn's blind heroine of
Wait Until Dark turning off the lights in her apartment to
even the field against her sighted attacker. In genre cinema, disabled
protagonists are generally given agency, as what sort of sicko would want to
simply watch a disabled person be victimised?
With Blind, director Marcel Walz has created a thriller that seems to be aimed
at exactly that sort of sicko. The protagonist of his superficial movie is
Faye (Sarah French), a former actress whose rising career was ended
when a botched lazer eye surgery procedure left her completely sightless.
Despite the well-meaning efforts of her small support network - blind at
birth friend Sophia (genre stalwart Caroline Williams) and mute
counsellor Luke (Tyler Gallant), who has an unrequited crush on her -
Faye lives a reclusive life in her home in the Hollywood hills.
After an opening act that attempts to give us a sense of the life Faye now
lives - but which is dogged by atrocious screenwriting that makes you think
you've mistakenly flipped over to a daytime soap - we settle down for a
final hour that plays out in something approaching real time. The
unsuspecting Faye is menaced, first by the creep who delivers her sushi (Ben Kaplan) and helps himself to some panties from her bedroom, then by the film's
antagonist, a hulking brute (Jed Rowen) clad in a "pretty boy" mask
that gives him the appearance of that Brazilian bloke who spent millions on
plastic surgery to transform himself into a living Ken doll.
When I say it plays out in real time, I mean that quite literally, as Walz
appears to forget about that vital filmmaking technique known as editing.
Scenes run on interminably in extended takes, and a couple of times the
movie pauses to morph into a music video as Faye dances slowly around her
living room while Pretty Boy imagines himself waltzing with the beautiful
actress in his arms.
At one point Pretty Boy stands mere inches from Faye, who somehow doesn't
smell or sense his presence. This is representative of the film's complete
lack of understanding of blindness. While French does her best in the role,
little thought has been given to how a blind person functions. This extends
to the production design of Faye's home - why are there lit candles and
lamps all around a blind woman's home? The agency you expect the film to
give Faye is oddly absent. She never gets the chance to fight back in
typical Final Girl fashion - she's simply a victim, the sort of character
who's usually the first to die in a horror movie. Watching this vulnerable
figure be menaced simply isn't fun, and it's only creepy on an initial
surface level.
Previous thrillers with blind protagonists (or in the case of
Don't Breathe, an antagonist) have recognised the importance of sound design, an aspect
Walz overlooks. The stalking scenes are accompanied by Klaus Pfreundner's overbearing score, which drowns out the many little sounds Faye should
be picking up - it's as though Faye can hear the film's score along with the
audience.
Faye is often given to expository monologuing, and there's a recurring
critique of Hollywood's reluctance to cast disabled performers. After
reaching stardom, Faye has now been cast aside, with seemingly no support
from the industry that made a fortune from her stardom. But
Blind itself is complicit in the very thing it's criticising,
as French is a sighted actress. The hypocrisy is staggering.
Any positives of Blind are merely superficial. Visually,
'Pretty Boy' is a genuinely creepy looking villain, and it's a shame his
potential is wasted. Thomas Rist's cinematography bathes the film in
a neon sheen reminiscent of the digital works of Michael Mann. It all makes
for an arresting two minute trailer, but the actual film is a 90 minute
bore.
