I was absolutely astounded by the ending of Vanished Into the Night. Maybe I was caught off guard and not completely wise to the incoming twist, but Pietro’s near downfall and betrayal by his wife were not something I saw coming. There are probably a few moments, especially with the situation with his wife, that did not make complete sense, so I’ve provided a breakdown of what really happened in this quick analysis:
A quick recap of the movie that leads to the twist
Pietro goes on a dangerous mission to save his kids (Credit – Netflix)
Let me condense this into a quick summary: Pietro is going through a complicated divorce with his wife, Elena, and they have shared custody of the kids. One evening in his country home, his children suddenly disappear. He is given a ransom from an unknown person to get his children back. (It’s worth noting that he does owe a group of men money at the start of the film, presumably for his past gambling addiction that is glazed over lightly).
His wife, who is seemingly angry for allowing this to happen, tells Pietro to sort this out at all costs and suggests he ask his friend Nico for the 150,000 Euro ransom. Pietro does not like Nico, believing he is a dodgy person, but he has no choice. He’s desperate. He wants his children back.
And so, Pietro asks for the cash, but Nico will only agree to give it to him if he goes on a boat trip to facilitate a drug deal. This nearly costs Pietro his life. It’s a dangerous mission where he’s nearly caught with a bag of cocaine by the authorities.
A disgruntled Pietro manages to get the money off a drugged-up Nico and ends up fighting him for it. This is the segway to the twist.
The children were not technically kidnapped
Elena (played by Annabelle Wallis) in ‘Vanished Into the Night’ (Credit – Netflix
The ultimate twist in the ending of Vanished Into the Night is that Pietro’s children were not technically kidnapped based on Pietro’s reality. When he returns to his wife’s apartment with the money after an extremely stressful night, he finds his children in the kitchen enjoying breakfast.
Of course, Pietro is flabbergasted. He wonders if he’s losing his mind. Elena looks confused, wondering why Pietro is surprised to see their children.
Pietro’s frustration spills over, and he explains to Elena about the kidnapping, the ransom, and going to Nico asking for help which led to a drug deal. But Elena acts like she remembers nothing of it and claims the children have been with her the entire time. And this is when reality sinks in. Elena calls him crazy and asks him to leave the apartment, feeling that he is “unsafe” for their children.
The end of Vanished Into the Night is really about a twisted child custody case during divorce proceedings. Elena reveals she has recorded their conversation in the apartment, which makes Pietro sound like a reckless, violent, and mentally insane man. She tells Pietro she will take the children to New York, and she needs his consent. If he does not give consent, she will use the recording against him.
Yes, that’s right, ladies and gentlemen: Elena orchestrated the whole “kidnapping” scenario so she could destroy her husband in their divorce. And what makes it more evil is that she hinted that they could rekindle their marriage earlier in the movie after stressful divorce meetings.
Not only did Elena orchestrate the scenario, but she also used “parent alienation” tactics on her children, who seemed pretty willing to deny that they were staying over at their father’s place. This leads to a revelation as Pietro cannot understand why his children are so confused about the moment they were sleeping at his country home, but woke up at their mother’s apartment. Let’s break this down even more.
The end of ‘Vanished Into the Night’ is a shocking case of child abuse
Pietro confronts Elena at the airport at the end of ‘Vanished Into the Night’ (Credit – Netflix)
We’ve all heard horror stories regarding divorces. Spouses will often go to extreme lengths to manipulate and destroy their exes for their gain. However, Elena took it further than that.
Pietro learns that Elena drugged her children with Oxycodone so that they were completely knocked out in order to kidnap them from his country home. Pietro figured this out when he saw a used pill packet in his toilet bowl and then saw the same drugs in her medicine cabinet at her apartment.
Pietro goes to the airport and tells Elena that he will not be giving consent to leave for New York with their children. He threatens to report her and use his children’s hair samples to prove opiates in their system. I’m actually astonished at how much he’s being a better person by giving her a chance to give up her children without any form of punishment for what she did. She drugged her children with opioids via injection!
At the end of the movie, Pietro is back in his country house looking after his children, and you can see Elena in the background, blurred. Pietro sees her, and the film ends. There’s an implication here that Elena wants to reconcile their marriage, and if I’m honest, I think Pietro isn’t strong enough yet as a man to deny her. There’s a reason he gave her a chance at the airport. He wants to give their family a chance. He’s making the wrong decision — using opioids on your children is an extreme form of child abuse. You shouldn’t reconcile with any partner capable of such things.
But honestly, I loved the misdirections in this movie. I assume many saw the twist coming, but I didn’t, which made the experience enthralling. For instance, the fact that Pietro owes some people money due to his past financial mismanagement is a great misdirect. You always assume this is the issue of his misfortunes, not his wife, plotting in the background.
RELATED:
