See For Me Blu-ray Review

Blind & Lame Thriller

See For Me wastes a semi-interesting premise and its solid cast featuring names like Laura Vandervoort and Jessica Parker Kennedy. The home invasion thriller from Canada is painfully contrived despite a few unexpected twists and turns.

Director Randall Okita seems intent on subverting viewers’ expectations within the formulaic genre. Competently made but lacking the necessary refinement, See For Me ultimately lets viewers down with an unsympathetic lead and forgettable villains.

There’s some promise buried deep within See For Me’s muddled writing

The most interesting thing about See For Me is the movie’s blind protagonist, which also happens to be its biggest downfall. Sophie (Skyler Davenport) was a former champion skier in high school with legitimate dreams of making the Olympic team. A rare illness has turned her blind, crushing her ambitions. The unhappy young woman now house-sits for others to earn a living. It’s a tough break, which partially explains her cantankerous personality.

A group of thieves break into the luxurious home Sophie watches over, beginning a long night of terror. The blind girl has only her wits and a smartphone to save herself from this deadly situation.

Sophie’s primary help is a phone app made for the blind, connecting her with Kelly (Jessica Parker Kennedy), an assistant on the other side of the country who can see anything Sophie’s camera can see. Based on a real app, it pairs blind people with helpers over the phone.

Kelly and Sophie are complete strangers but they soon form a dynamic team. Kelly’s remote help may be Sophie’s only way out from this nightmarish ordeal.

See For Me hand-waves away the many contrivances needed for the plot to work at all. Who hires a blind girl to cat-sit a gigantic mansion by herself? That is the first of many obvious problems. However, Sophie herself is a rather unsympathetic character despite the handicap. The blind girl’s character flaws don’t endear her with the audience. The thieves are boring and never feel menacing enough, even as the unbelievable twists pile up.

The Canadian indie thriller is a flawed film filled with mostly unimaginative thrills. The primary leads are Skyler Davenport and the always fun Jessica Parker Kennedy. While Laura Vandervoort gets her name above the marquee, it’s a token role which doesn’t last much longer than a couple minutes. There’s some promise buried deep within See For Me’s muddled writing but even 90 minutes feels long for its thin premise and bland characters.

Video

See For Me’s picture quality is never soft, hazy, or unfocused. That is its best strength in what is otherwise unimpressive HD. The 2.39:1 presentation is largely flawless video of uninspired visuals, primarily set within the corridors of a modernistic mansion. RLJ Entertainment provides an adequate transfer in 1080p resolution which offers high clarity but primarily lifeless digital quality. A bland palette is backed by a consistently even contrast and decently inky black levels.

The main feature runs 92 minutes on a BD-25. The AVC encode exhibits occasional banding, this is not a pristine compression effort for such clean material. There are no signs of filtering or other video processing tools.

Razor-sharp but dull, the pedestrian video reflects a smaller budget typical for indie filmmaking.

Audio

5.1 DTS-HD MA audio safely operates within the confines of the front soundstage. There are no problems with the smooth fidelity and tangible sound design. Modest LFE presence and rare bursts of surround activity make for fairly uninspired sonics. Intelligible dialogue stays in balance with the instrumental score by Menalon.

Optional English and Spanish subtitles play in a white font, remaining inside the scope presentation.

Extras

No special features are included. The disc is listed as Region A. The three trailers for other IFC Midnight films play before the main menu.

The Rental Trailer (02:03 in HD)

We Need To Do Something Trailer (01:42 in HD)

Demonic Trailer (02:15 in HD)

Full disclosure: This Blu-ray was provided by the label for review. This has not affected our editorial process. For information on how we handle review material, please visit our about us page.

The following six screen shots serve as samples for our subscription-exclusive set of 31 full resolution, uncompressed HD screen shots grabbed directly from the Blu-ray: