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One of the most essential rules of screenwriting is your protagonist (the main character) must be (in some way) relatable, likable, or empathetic. The audience needs to identify with the protagonist to properly engage with the story. Sarah Conor (Linda Hamilton) from The Terminator or John McClane (Bruce Willis) from Die Hard are a few excellent examples. The story will suffer when you have an unlikeable or unrelatable protagonist because there's no tangible reason for investing our time. Case in point; why am I supposed to root for anyone in the movie I Care A Lot when everyone is selfish, unempathetic, and downright evil?
See For Me is a film with a protagonist who constantly loses balance on the tightrope between being sympathetic and otherwise not. Granted, part of the story is about the protagonist learning a lesson to become a better person, but it takes too long to reach that point. For the most part, the film is a genuine thriller with a pretty neat concept...that would have been more memorable if the protagonist wasn't so disjointed.
The story follows a young woman named Sophie (Skyler Davenport), a former professional skier who lost her sight after an accident. Since then, she's adapted to her disability and currently works as a housesitter for wealthy clients. They are wealthy enough that they might not miss one of their many bottles of uber-expensive wine, which Sophie can take home and sell-off. Her latest efforts appear to be going off without a hitch until a group of men sneak their way into the house and attempt to break into a hidden safe filled with dirty money. To survive, Sophie uses an app called "See For Me": a dedicated service for the blind that provides an assistant via video call. Sophie manages to connect with an assistant named Kelly (Jessica Parker Kennedy), a former soldier with the right kind of experience to help Sophie survive while waiting for the police to arrive. The only question is, how far will Sophie go to survive the night?
Overall, the film is fine. It has a solid premise, decent performances, and a couple of genuinely thrilling moments sprinkled throughout. It's a well-done execution of a neat concept. However, as I alluded to before, it partially suffers from a less-than-likable protagonist.
On the one hand, her personality and choices are understandable. She's a proud athlete who suddenly can't ski anymore and hates being treated as a weakling who needs help for most mundane things. That is something any of us can understand, even if we don't have a disability of some kind. But on the other hand (minor spoiler), her likability goes out the window when she decides to try and join the criminals who broke in, offering to help with the heist in exchange for a fair cut. Granted, part of why she would do it is to survive the ordeal. Still, the story feels as if it pushes the situation too far, causing the audience (intentional or not) to lose interest in the protagonist's plight. She's like a walking balance scale that's constantly shifting too far between the two extremes. And when the story finally provides her with the right balance, you wonder why it took so long.
The film also suffers from being yet another thriller that's too dark, as in too darkly photographed. Granted, it's a scary movie with a blind protagonist, so darkness does play an essential role in the story, but I can't help feel they missed a perfect opportunity to play around with the contrast. Like, the film could have been brightly lit for the first half, providing a disadvantage the protagonist has to overcome, as she slowly removes the light bringing the villains down to her level. Instead, the whole film is overrun with too many shadows all the time. Admittedly, that is just a minor nitpick.
See For Me may not have the most well-rounded protagonist, and it may suffer from too much low-light photography (understandable though it is), but it's still a decent thriller with a clever idea that, at the very least, does not feel wasted. If you need a quick scare for some reason, this might fit the bill. Give it a look if you're the least bit curious.
Ladies & gentlemen, I am TheNorm; thank you all for reading.
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