What if suddenly the lights went out and the people disappeared, leaving behind empty suits of clothes and cars that crashed without their drivers? That's the premise of Vanishing on 7th Street, the latest in a long line of stories about lonesome survivors of an incomprehensible, earthwide catastrophe.
In Vanishing, inky rivers of darkness seek to engulf everything, especially the people who survived the initial blackout. Only light repels them and light has become a scarce natural resource. The power grid is down and the world is awry with the sun rising late and setting early. A handful of mismatched protagonists (wondering why us?) stumble into the precarious shelter of a bar with a generator running the dim lights and a jukebox stocked with R&B oldies. And yet the shadows keep encroaching.
The patchy iconography and storyline wants to be more profound than it's capable of as it glances sideways toward eternal questions of fate and randomness in the face of this unhallowed Rapture. The capable cast headed by Hayden Christensen, John Leguizamo and Thandie Newton keep the proceedings moving along, even as director Brad Anderson (The Machinist) squanders opportunities for suspense and the screenplay falters with its exploration of the human condition.
Vanishing's irresolution, however, could be understood as a sign of our times. Newton's character murmurs her prayers and wonders if the survivors are the left behinds in hell, while Leguizamo goes on bitterly about all the infractions against the laws of physics. Neither religion nor science seems to have much to say about a world sunk in the shadows of anxiety.
Vanishing on 7th Street is out on Blu-ray and DVD.
