BLINK (2024) - Mark Reviews Movies

Blink, National Geographic Documentary Films / Disney

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 3, 2024

Something has gone unfortunately wrong in the storytelling of Blink. The story at its core is a tragic one, about a family of six—two parents and four children—who are dealing with a medical inevitability. Of Édith Lemay and Sébastien Pelletier's four kids, three of them have retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative disease that leads to the eventual losses of the ability to see in the dark and peripheral vision. The mother demonstrates what the children's vision will be like with her hands, slowly enveloping them around her eye until only a small hole remains.

There is no cure, by way of either medicine or surgery. The kids' vision is already deteriorating, meaning that none of the three can see the stars or anything at night. Mia, the pre-teen daughter, explains that nighttime for her is like existing in the void, and when given the chance to see the Northern Lights, the three children have no idea where they would look if they even could see that green glow in the sky.

Directors Daniel Roher and Edmund Stenson take this family's story and, for the most part, bypass it for a more broadly uplifting and adventurous tale. Lemay and Pelletier have taken a doctor's suggestion that they should build up the three kids' visual memory to heart and to what many would see as a wonderful extreme. For a year, the six will travel the globe, checking off items on a list of things the family wants to do and see while they still can. The father wants to go on a multi-day hiking trek, so why shouldn't that happen among the mountainous paths of Nepal? Because he's a kid, one of the young sons wants to drink juice while sitting on a camel, and what better place is there to do that than in the Egyptian desert?

At this point, one should be able to see where this documentary is heading. It's basically everywhere around the world and nowhere specific about the reason for that globe-trotting trip in the first place. Watching the movie is more akin to seeing professionally produced home movies, in which everyone is all smiles and laughter and joy. Knowing what's coming, of course, makes the family's impulse to avoid thoughts of the future while on the trip obvious, but the filmmakers seem to be oddly of the mindset, too.

It should probably go without saying that, as a travelogue, the movie is impressive, if a bit hastily assembled and too quick to breeze through entire sections of the family's vacation. What's somewhat unique about the trip is how adamant Lemay and Pelletier are to keep it on a budget. They may look a well-to-do family, with Pelletier having an unexpected financial windfall when the company he worked for sold and resulted in his stock shares rising considerably, but this is still a year-long expedition for six people. Plus, who knows what costs might come as the three children's sight diminishes further?

This means the family stays and travels off the beaten path for the most part, staying in people's homes and arranging tours themselves or through local means. One does wonder how much influence and/or support the filmmakers and producers might have had in the trip, but that question barely matters when the more significant one is how uncurious the directors are about their subjects.

Sure, Lemay is occasionally open and frank about her fears for her kids. Yes, the topic of their deteriorating sight is raised every so often, such as when the family becomes trapped in a cable car in Ecuador for several hours, leading the girl to begin panicking as night falls. That sequence goes on for so long that we start to wonder why it's treated as such a significant moment, and once it becomes apparent because of the daughter's reaction, we then start to wonder why the honest discussion of her feelings comes across as a unique moment. The movie has evaded it for so long that the honesty is a surprise.

Instead, we simply watch this family, who are very kind and funny and charming and undeserving of what's happening to them and their loved ones, go on adventures. They hike through the mountains of Nepal. They cross a frozen wasteland. They watch sunsets in the desert and visit a village on the Amazon basin, where the kids meet other children just like them and the parents hear of a father's desire to ensure the best for his son. That leads to a touching moment between Lemay and Pelletier, as they both imagine what their children will take from any future travels and arrive at an optimistic conclusion.

Again, we can understand and sympathize with their hope. Blink, though, is too devoted to such a sentiment, as well, and the result is a hollow examination of a family's extraordinary vacation that doesn't attempt to examine their extraordinary struggles now and in the future.

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