Harry Sherriff’s Misper unfolds in a dying seaside hotel where the air carries the weight of something unspoken, and the disappearance of Elle, played with sharp, bright presence by Emily Carey, becomes the fracture point for everyone left behind. The film refuses the sensational pull of true‑crime narratives; instead, it turns inward, letting the shock of loss seep into the routines of those who barely knew how to hold their own lives together. Sherriff’s direction keeps the story close to the ground, letting the emotional disturbance ripple through the smallest gestures.
Samuel Blenkin’s Leonard stands at the center of this disturbance, a concierge whose crush on Elle never had the chance to become anything more than a fragile hope. His performance carries a tremor that never resolves, and the film uses that tremor to explore the bewilderment that follows sudden absence. The script by Laurence Tratalos gives Leonard’s unraveling a quiet precision, and the scenes between him and Carey build a tenderness that deepens the film’s later ache. Their connection becomes the emotional hinge on which the film turns.
The craft around them strengthens the film’s atmosphere. Bart Bazaz’s cinematography holds the hotel in a state of permanent dusk, and Violette De Laet’s production design gives the building a worn, exhausted presence that mirrors the staff’s emotional fatigue. Andy Sowerby’s editing keeps the narrative tight, letting the dread accumulate without tipping into melodrama. The film’s restraint becomes its signature, and the horror elements—brief flashes of Elle’s presence after death—arrive as ruptures rather than genre obligations.
Still, the film’s refusal to commit fully to horror or crime drama leaves certain threads underdeveloped. The nightmarish visions hint at a deeper psychological descent that the film only partially explores, and the avoidance of the murder’s details, while thematically purposeful, occasionally blunts the narrative’s urgency. Yet the emotional focus remains steady. The film’s interest lies in the aftermath, in the way grief settles into the corners of a place that has already been hollowed out.
By the end, Misper becomes a portrait of a community suspended between dread and numbness. It captures the eerie drift that follows tragedy, the way ordinary life continues even when something essential has been torn away. Imperfect but resonant, it marks a confident debut for Sherriff and a striking performance from Carey.
Letter Grade: B+.
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