A Very Dark, Very Red Wine
SEE FOR ME – directed by Randall Okita – SPOILERS ⁓
Sophie
The story is part WAIT UNTIL DARK and part PANIC ROOM. (Davenport’s performance immediately brings Meg Altman to mind.) It is fast-paced with plenty of gunplay and no shortage of narrowly averted near-disasters.
Sophie’s remote assistant Kelly
Sophie Scott (Skyler Davenport) was the one of the top skiers in the country, but before she could compete in the Olympics she went blind. (Retinitis pigmentosa was the diagnosis.) She has since been invited to compete in the Paralympics, but has no money to pay for equipment or training.
Sophie takes a house-and-cat-sitting job in a remote area of upstate New York. On the first night after her employer Debra (Laura Vandervoort) leaves on a “pleasure trip”, an overconfident Sophie locks herself out of the house.
She downloads “See For Me”, an app called “See For Me” that provides a video link to a sighted person, so she can get back into the house without calling Debra for help. Using her new app to search for help, Sophie locates (Kelly played by Jessica Parker Kennedy), an Iraq War vet on disciplinary desk duty, who has just lost a virtual battle, and is pleased to have her gaming interrupted.
Sophie after getting through a locked patio door with Kelly’s help
Kelly helps Sophie get past the security system by hacking a sliding glass door.
KELLY: “Am I now an accessory to a B and E?”
SOPHIE: “You don’t seem too worried about that.”
KELLY: “Yeah. Well, I’ve done worse.”
We never find out what Kelly meant by that. Three guys break into the place and start drilling the safe. Initially, Sofie thinks Bentley the Cat (played by a cat named Archie) might be responsible for the noise so she activates the locator on the cat’s collar and the sound tips the burglars to her presence.
Rico
A former skiing associate named Cam (Keaton Kaplan) had been providing her with the same sort of help “See For Me” provides, but Sophie and Cam have a falling out, because Cam has ethical concerns about some of Sophie’s recent activities (e.g. stealing a bottle of expensive wine (Chambertin Grand Cru 1989) initially serves to illustrate Sophie’s conflict with Cam. In the film the wine is said to be worth $4500. The price has gone up since then.) Had she not stolen the wine, things would not have turned out nearly as well for her.
Torianna Lee, Skyler Davenport’s stunt double, gets quite a workout because of all the action scenes. Lee also doubled for Elliot Page in “The Umbrella Academy“.
Deputy Sheriff Brooks (Emily Piggford) responds to Sophie’s 911 call. — Piggford also stars as twins Emily North and Charlotte Palmer in Max McGuire’s THE EVIL TWIN.
The invaders are Otis (George Tchortov), Ernie (Pascal Langdale), and Dave (Joe Pingue). Dave is the one with the large drill, and his job is to open the safe. Ernie is the tech guy in charge of dealing with the security system, and is in constant contact with the operation’s mastermind Rico (Kim Coates).
When her presence is discovered by the thieves, Sophie says she’ll keep quiet for a share of the loot, and uses that bottle of wine mentioned earlier to demonstrate her criminal inclinations. Later that same wine bottle becomes an improvised weapon that saves her life. (The wine did not survive.)
The film’s opening frame.
In an interview with Raven Brunner of Game Rant, Director Randall Okita was asked about the fate of Archie (the gluten-allergic cat Sophie was hired to take care of). “You have to wait for the sequel to learn about the backstory of what was happening with the cat,” he responded. “People have asked about the cat. I will say this: The cat is okay. There was a lot of talk about how to tie in the cat piece. But we had to focus on the other characters.”
The ending resolves some things, but is abrupt and open to interpretation.