A canal boat can’t just vanish into thin air? Can it? That’s the conundrum faced by puzzled City trader Zac (Will Sharpe, who also co-directs) in this enigmatic, low-budget British drama with sparkles of absurdist comedy. After his misfit sister (Tiani Ghosh) and her nice-but-vague boyfriend (Joe Thomas) go missing, Zac sets up an online blog to document the search that is taking over his life.
The performances are slightly off-kilter and engaging, but the script seriously miscalculates that we’ll all be interested enough in everyone’s backstory and Zac’s increasingly frazzled detective quest to wait for answers to the film’s central mystery. Unfortunately, it just doesn’t play out that way. So despite the sincere craft in the intriguing and resourceful visuals, the whole thing is dead on its feet long before the whys and hows of its eccentric universe are revealed. There’s no doubt that Sharpe and co-director Tom Kingsley are talented, but some careful nurturing is also in order.
