Critics Of "You Disappear (Du forsvinder) [Audio: Danish]"
Globe and Mail
September 11, 2017
But after pondering the question of what makes us who we are over and over, you're reminded that the question is so much more captivating than the answers we're given here.
... Danish director Peter Schønau Fog's second feature You Disappear is an intriguing, if not wholly satisfying, family melodrama, buoyed up by decent central performances and an unsentimental directness.
An initially absorbing, increasingly exasperating study of a family man whose actions grow inexplicable and indefensible after it's discovered he has a brain tumor.
[Peter Schønau] Fog is so busy considering the story's philosophical underpinnings that he forgets to render that story in a compelling or urgent manner
This could have been an intriguing look at cause and effect with an ill man's intent on trial, but it ultimately becomes another demeaning representation of women.
You Disappear is the sort of film that recites large passages of the book in voiceover, just in case anyone in the cheap seats might be missing the philosophical subtext to the onscreen plot.
The nonlinear plotting does a major disservice to "You Disappear," which plays out like a made-for-TV adaptation of Scandinavian paperback you might glance over at an airport bookstore: all flash, no substance.
First-rate actors and polished filmmaking craft ensure reasonable involvement, but the movie's literary density and structural repetitiousness become steadily more wearing than intriguing.