PG | 1h 24m | Documentary, Adventure, Family | 2024
At its core, the new documentary “Blink” is a heartwarming and uplifting story about a family receiving some very bad news and trying to make the best of it. It’s hopeful, mostly upbeat, and is a great example of the power of positive thinking.
The opening scene in the movie is actually a flash-forward taking place sometime later in the timeline. It’s not made clear when, nor does it matter.
Two adults and four children are shown walking across a frozen winter tundra via overhead and long distance shots. It ends with them taking in the natural display of the Northern Lights (the Aurora Borealis). Three people can see it, and three cannot.
The story begins in Montreal at the Pelletier home with father Sebastien, mother Edith, and their four children. The eldest is daughter Mia (11), a take-charge, type-A girl, dubbed the family’s “second mom.” Mia’s younger brothers are Leo, 9; Colin, 6; and Laurent, 4.
Typical Modern Family
From everything on display, it’s a typically modern, middle-class household. Sebastien and Edith take care of the cooking, cleaning, and corralling of the constantly-in-motion children who all seem to get along.
After this small-talk intro, co-directors Daniel Roher and Edmund Stenson ease into the point of the film. With the exception of Leo, all of the children have been recently diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), an incurable genetic eye disease. As it progresses, RP results in loss of vision and individuals suffer complete night blindness. Though never mentioned in the movie, total RP blindness is quite rare.
Right out of the gate, the “science” here seems suspect at best. Be that as it may, Roher and Stenson quickly jump ahead to the “feel good” portion of the movie.
A Global Tour
After discovering that three of their four children will be deprived of their sight sooner than later, Sebastien and Edith decide it’s proper to treat the entire family to a year-long tour of the globe. Their reasoning: show the children as many parts of the world as possible to give them visual memories that will stay with them for their lifetimes.It’s an admirable agenda. Having the luxury of knowing RP is a slow moving disease, making the most of what time is left, and having the funds to pull it off makes the entire venture possible and plausible.
Sebastien is recently unemployed; however, he owned beaucoup stock shares in a company that either let him go or was sold. It’s another point that’s never made clear. Sebastien determines that $200 a day will be more than enough to finance a year-long trot for six around the planet, or a grand total of $73,000. This number isn’t impossible, but considering the cost of food, travel, lodging, and incidental expenditures, it seems a bit far-fetched.
Had Sebastian and Edith planned a “minimum travel” route, this might have made sense, but they didn’t. The family hopscotches from Europe to Asia to South America multiple times. Based on the travel itinerary presented, the budget of $200 a day would be a pipe dream.
The portions of the movie showing the family visiting the two dozen or so locations is admittedly engaging, and are accompanied by elementary school-grade crayon graphics. These features go far in sustaining the attention span of audiences with ages in the single digits.
Stranded in the Air
One stop on the world tour goes terribly awry in South America after a waterfall repelling excursion. On the way down from a mountain, a ski lift-style cable car carrying the family suddenly stops. For 10 hours.Being trapped in a box about the size of station wagon far above the ground without electricity, heat, food or water, or a bathroom would test the patience of the most understanding adult. Imagine the effect it had on four children. Now imagine what a child watching this on a movie screen will feel.
Given that the movie is only 84 minutes long and this segment lasts for 15 of those minutes, it’s easy to see why the directors included it in the final cut. They had time to fill. Regardless, it was a terrible decision. All it accomplishes is making both children and adult viewers anxious and uneasy.
Finally, the ultimate medical outcome of the three RP children is never revealed. There’s no resolution provided. In a live-action movie, that might be acceptable, but as this is a documentary, it’s practically unforgiveable.
“Blink” presents a real-life medical scenario involving children and asks the audience to make a heavy emotional investment in them. Without providing sufficient closure, this was a patently bad idea. All of us deserve better.
