KIDNAPPED
Australia, 2021, 85 minutes, Colour.
Claire van der Boom, Todd Lasance, Melina Vidler, Molly Wright, Jason Wilder, Sophie Tilson, Sami Afuni, Daryl Heath.
Directed by Vic Sarin.
This is a domestic drama, touches of the thriller, made for a popular and undermining audience.
The film opens in Los Angeles, a family deciding to return to Australia, where the mother comes from. She is played by Claire van der Boom. Her husband is played by Todd Lasance. Their daughter is five years old, Molly Wright.
They have unexpectedly won a holiday at a resort where the mother used to go on holidays with her parents – but, as later revealed in a dramatic flashback, not a place for happy memories, especially of her father, his two-timing her mother, starting another family.
However, all is very cheery at the resort and audiences will enjoy the tropical scenery, filmed on an island off Port Douglas. Everything seems to be wonderful for the holiday – except when the little girl, Aria, wanders off and the audience thinks that the kidnapping is happening already, but she has just been looking for shells.
However, she does disappear and the bulk of the film is the frantic search for her all over the island, footage showing that she went into the basement of the Children’s Centre and was not seen again. Needless to say, there is a lot of heightened drama in the searching, the focus particularly on the mother, some harsh words between husband and wife and then reconciliation, getting the help of the local police who are delayed by search warrants, employing the help of a couple that they met on arrival who joined them for a barbecue. They are immediately suspect since they were discussing the difficulties of having a child. There is also the man on security at the Children’s Centre who is revealed to have had a shady past, especially in child trafficking. They are helped by Jane, Melinda Vidler, very agreeable at reception and showing the couple round. With her cheeriness, she is automatically a suspect.
There is a flashback sequence which, if the audience puts its mind to it, would indicate who is to blame, and the motivation – and that is how it is all solved.
Slight and easy entertainment.
