The Vanishing of Sidney Hall

Sidney Hall, a writer who found enormous success young, disappears. The film tells his life in three time frames: the high school years in which he wrote his book, the period of his fame, and the bearded man years later who travels the country finding and burning copies of his own novels. It is not interested in the mystery of the writer. It is interested in what his writing did to other people: his first novel fed on a real person, and its effect ended in a suicide. His disappearance comes out of that guilt. The form cuts continually between the three periods. That keeps the mystery alive but also breaks the emotional flow, and the structure is the most criticised thing about the film. Shawn Christensen wrote and directed. He had already won an Oscar for a short film, and here he tries to carry the same melancholy tone into a feature. Logan Lerman plays Sidney, Elle Fanning his first girlfriend and Kyle Chandler the man following him. Michelle Monaghan is also in the cast. Who it is for: viewers drawn to the myth of the young writer and to melancholy American independents. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a gripping mystery. The secret finally revealed does not repay the expectation the three-part structure builds.