A24 rarely steers us wrong with it comes to compelling indie flicks, and their first release of 2018 certainly looks promising. THE VANISHING OF SIDNEY HALL stars Logan Lerman as Sidney Hall, a young writer whose controversial best-selling novel rockets him to unexpected fame and strains his relationship with his girlfriend, Melody (Elle Fanning). Ultimately, the dark consequences of his novel cause Hall to disappear without a trace, and years later, a detective (Kyle Chandler) begins a search for the missing writer.
Our own Chris Bumbray caught THE VANISHING OF SIDNEY HALL at the Sundance Film Festival last year, when it was titled SIDNEY HALL, and unfortunately, he didn't think all that highly of it. Saying that the film "tries hard to be a gritty psychological profile of a tortured anti-hero, but it’s an ego trip for selfish, self-absorbed people everywhere," Bumbray added that it's a "weird mix of teen melodrama and pretentiousness." Shucks.
The official synopsis for THE VANISHING OF SIDNEY HALL:
After publishing a bestselling novel based on the death of one of his high school classmates, the controversial writer Sidney Hall (Logan Lerman) finds himself catapulted to unexpected fame and renown. His relationship with his girlfriend (Elle Fanning) begins to fall apart as the dark consequences of the book intrude on their life together, and he disappears without a trace. Nearly a decade later, an enigmatic detective searches for the missing author, whose books are connected to a string of mysterious arsons.
THE VANISHING OF SIDNEY HALL will be released on DirecTV on January 25th before hitting theaters in a limited release on March 2, 2018.