The Lady Vanishes
The Lady Vanishes
| 17 March 2013 (USA)

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Young socialite Iris Carr befriends an older woman while traveling solo by train. When Iris wakes from a nap, the woman is gone and other passengers claim she never existed.

Reviews
ThiefHott Too much of everything
Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.
Paul Evans Iris Carr is a rich and beautiful Socialite holidaying in The Mediterranean, bored with her friends and the lifestyle, she decides to stay on as they set for home. She realises she's bored without her friends and decides to head home to London, by train. She pays over the odds for her seat, then suffers an accident, almost missing her train. Concussed, she befriends the prim English lady Miss Froy, who tells Iris her life story, and reasons for leaving her powerful employer, after falling into a deep sleep Miss Froy disappears, but nobody can remember who Miss Froy was, was she dreaming? Only fellow traveller Max Hare offers a helping hand.I'm surprised there are so many less then favourable reviews for this production. It is immaculately produced, it looks utterly marvellous, with flawless camera work, it's so bright and vivid. I'd say it's tremendously well acted too, Tuppence Middleton is fantastic as Iris Carr, she does a great job playing the spoilt brat turned nice girl. Stephanie Cole and Gemma Jones make a wonderful dry and judgmental pair. Possibly Selina Cadell steals the show as Miss Froy, what a cracking actress she is.So they made a few tweaks to the script, in order to jazz it up and bring it up to date, it's been produced several times, and I was glad they did something a little different. The ending is really brilliantly crafted.A cracking drama, 9/10
CineNutty The title character is a brat and most unsympathetic. So when "stuff" starts happening to her you wondering if it her personality, her drinking to excess, a possible concussion from and earlier fall, potential insanity, whatever. You simply don't know.Production values are very high. They went to a lot of trouble to produce a "Poirot-like" world for this very independent strong minded woman. Tuppence Middleton does "yeoman's work" in developing the central character. The plot device reminds me very much of the recent film "Flightplan" with Jodie Foster who loses track of her daughter on a overseas flight and NO ONE believes her when she tells the truth.It, of course, is maddening because we are put into the position of the title character and her traveling companions. The British are number one at mysteries, and this is well worth the time to watch a guess about what is going on. Enjoy (on the edge of your seat).
paul-curtis1956 I should say that the excellent cast should in no way feel any responsibility for this flop of a remake, after all you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear. However the writer should be commended not only for the Lady Vanishing but also the iconic characters, Charters and Caldicott, on top of which they also managed to Vanish any hint of suspense. I can only assume that they had never seen the original 1938 version of the British comic thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and Written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launderand. This classic starred Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave and was both critically acclaimed as a masterpiece and was a box office smash. In fact even director Anthony Pages 1979 remake, though a pale imitation of Hitchcock's original, was a far superior offering than the one served up in this adaptation.
bellapeligrosa Based on the 1938 Hitchcock thriller of the same name (which I haven't seen), this looked like rather a good whodunnit. The cast if full of young up-comers and old stalwarts, many of whom seem to be doing the rounds in British TV at the moment. The premise: a beautiful young socialite, Iris Carr, is making her way back to England by train after a Balkans holiday and finds herself befriended by a kind older lady who calls herself Mrs Froy. Disorientated by a fall at the station earlier, Iris drifts off to sleep, only to find on awakening that Mrs Froy has disappeared and nobody else seems to have seen her - in fact they don't believe she existed in the first place. Of course there are only two possible outcomes: the woman isn't real and Iris is barking mad, or she has genuinely disappeared and there's some sort of conspiracy going on. Unfortunately the final hour dedicated to resolving the mystery is slow-paced, boring and ultimately all a bit predictable. Apart from Sandy McDade and Tuppence Middleton, all the other characters are stereotypes who get to do very little with their screen time. Middleton is superb, tackling Iris's transition from petulant snobbery to concern and brave determination with aplomb, but the plodding script can't keep up with her enthusiasm. It's definitely a Sunday afternoon movie, and one you can watch with Grandma - just don't expect edge-of-your-seat thrills.