Here's a film with great ingredients: unfortunately all of them from different genres and mixed together as if at random.

Essentially a detective story, in which a young woman, returning to her hometown, remembers witnessing a crime when still a child, it quickly takes a series of inexplicable turns until it loses direction and energy and ends as a mess with a truly awful gimmick final scene.

Central to the film's many problems are the inept direction which often entirely fails to explain how the plot gets from A to B, preferring instead to chain-link the dead-ends and anomalies by drawing attention to the psychological and mental problems of its unreliable main character. She's off her head, the movie seems to say, so the details don't matter.

Well, sorry, but they do, or at least they should.

For a movie with a genuinely intriguing and promising first half, it's hard to believe how utterly it has fallen apart by about ten minutes into part two, and, sadly, harder still to care. There's an interesting indie movie here about pressure to conform and perform, about the spiral of mental ill-health and the substitute narratives we weave when the world disappoints us, or we disappoint it. But this is not that movie. Far from it.

There's a cameo by David Cronenberg, some truly great locations, mostly decent acting (and some very hammy acting by the duo playing 90's magicians The Magnificent Moulins),but, unfortunately, a script that shouldn't have been given a second read-through let alone a full production.

In here too, as another viewer points out, is a story about child abuse that, in the movie's gimmicky end, may have been another meaningless illusion or confusion. That cop-out in its own makes this very poor offering a bit of an insult.

Do yourself a favour. Go to bed early with a book instead.

This movie kept my interest and attention for the entire duration so that's a positive thing. However I like mystery movies with a clear ending, an ending where I don't have to guess what really happened. I want clear answers on every question I have and unfortunately this was not the case with this movie. It felt like they couldn't be bothered to make it a nice ending, there were also some elements they completely neglected by the end and you start to wonder why they even brought them up during the movie. So to me whilst it was entertaining it clearly could and should have been better. Mysteries should start with an intriguing beginning, continue with a suspenseful middle, and end with the mystery completely solved, that's how a mystery movie is the most effective and that's how the gems in this genre are made. All in all the acting wasn't bad, the story was interesting, the cinematography was also okay but still it's a missed opportunity to make it a movie that stands out from the rest.

Abby West (Tuppence Middleton) returns to her hometown of Niagara Falls after her mother's death. She and her sister Laure inherit the rundown family motel. Laure wants to sell it right away. Abby is dealing with a childhood trauma which is keeping her psychologically stunted. While on a family fishing trip downstream from the falls at the age of seven, she alone witnessed a possible kidnapping. After finding an old photograph, she decides to report it to the police.

This starts with a great premise. The mystery doesn't have enough twists and turns. It's doing a straight line investigation. It doesn't really excite as a mystery film. There is a late reveal twist which should be done earlier in the movie. They could always double back with another twist. It does a bit of paranoid thriller but the audience is not given much doubt about Abby's sanity or motives in the case until it's too late. It tries to be moody but when paired with Canadiana and Niagara Falls kitsch, the atmospheric falls apart. At the end of the day, this movie has some right ideas but it struggles to achieve lift-off.