Vanished Into the Night Ending Explained: Who Kidnapped the Children? What Was Elena’s Plan?
Vanished Into the Night is the new Netflix thriller starring Riccardo Scamarcio and Annabelle Wallis (Peaky Blinders) arriving on Netflix on July 11, 2024. Set in Puglia, this film tells the story of a couple who, after their children are mysteriously kidnapped in the middle of the night on the outskirts of Bari, begin a desperate search to find them, adopting drastic measures to save them. But what happens to the children and how does this film literally leave you breathless until the end? Let’s find out together. Originally titled “Septimo” and based on a 2003 Spanish film, this new Netflix thriller follows Elena (Peaky Blinders star Annabelle Wallis), an American psychiatrist, and her husband Pietro (Riccardo Scamarcio, who we all know) as they deal with the sudden disappearance of their children. The couple is separated and is currently fighting for custody of the children. Elena wants to return to New York while Pietro insists on staying in Puglia, where he is restoring a country house to transform it into a hotel.
When the two children are kidnapped in the middle of the night and the kidnappers demand 150,000 euros in cash within 36 hours, Elena pushes Pietro to seek the help of a wealthy criminal she used to work with. Pietro agrees to do a small drug trafficking job for him in exchange for the money. The story follows Elena, an American psychiatrist, and her husband Pietro as they deal with the sudden disappearance of their children. The couple is separated and currently in a fierce custody battle over the children. Elena longs to return to New York, while Pietro insists on staying in Puglia, Italy, where he is restoring a farmhouse into a hotel. The drama escalates when the two children are kidnapped in the middle of the night and the perpetrators demand 150,000 euros in cash within 36 hours. Desperate, Elena pushes Pietro to seek the help of a wealthy criminal he used to work with. With no other option, Pietro agrees to do a small trafficking job for him in exchange for the necessary money. However, upon returning to Elena’s apartment after a nightmarish night, Pietro finds everything seemingly normal: his children are having breakfast as if nothing had happened and Elena knows nothing about the kidnapping. Is Pietro going crazy?
Vanished Into the Night: Plot Summary
Elena is an American psychiatrist who came to live in Italy, in Puglia, for the love of Pietro, a man with a stormy past. They got married, had two children, and cultivated the dream of restoring a farmhouse and turning it into a hotel. But things didn’t work out, and Pietro and Elena soon separated. One night, the children vanish into thin air while they are with Pietro at the farm. He searches everywhere for them and finally, desperate, is forced to warn Elena, with whom he has ended up in a custody battle for the children. When Elena reaches him, she attacks him and blames him, furious. Until they get a phone call: the children have been kidnapped; to get them back they will have to pay 150,000 euros in cash within 36 hours. For Elena it is all elementary: they are the loan sharks with whom Pietro has gotten into debt in a vain attempt to restore the farm.
They are dangerous people, capable of anything: they have to do as they say. Pietro is forced to turn to Nicola, an old criminal friend, who offers him a deal: he will give him the money he needs, but in exchange he wants him to leave that night for an island between Puglia and Greece, just three hours away, take drugs from some of his business “partners” and bring them back. He always needs “clean” boats for his trafficking, and Pietro’s fits the bill perfectly. Pietro agrees and embarks on a crazy adventure in the middle of the sea from which he miraculously emerges alive, at dawn in the morning. But when he returns to Bari he finds a situation totally different from the one he left only a few hours earlier: nothing seems to correspond to reality anymore, people behave absurdly, Elena in the lead. Pietro feels like he’s going crazy: what’s happening? But he has no time to think time is passing and this crazy mystery must be solved quickly.
Vanished Into the Night Ending Explained: Who Kidnapped the Children? What Was Elena’s Plan?
Vanished Into the Night has a decidedly unexpected ending that gives the whole story a whole other flavor. The kidnapping of Pietro’s (Riccardo Scamarcio) children seems to have been a hallucination for the man who, to pay the ransom, decided to collaborate in the illegal cocaine trafficking thanks to which he earned 150 thousand dollars but risked losing his freedom. To get his children back, Pietro spent a night on a boat, towards Greece, where he transported a load of drugs to Bari, convinced that his loan sharks would kill his two children. Children who, however, reappear the next morning at his wife’s house and who seem to have never been kidnapped.
Pietro first believes he has hallucinated, and his wife decides to take his children away from him and ask for a divorce, then he begins to suspect that there is something behind it and when he finds evidence in his farmhouse in Bari he understands everything. His wife kidnapped his children, first drugged them, and then took them away, asking her husband for the ransom money. All done to ask for a divorce and pocket the money. Pietro, however, discovers everything and takes his children back while Elena returns to America. Despite the crime committed by his wife, Pietro decides not to reveal anything to anyone to avoid the children knowing that their mother is called to kill them just for money.
Who Kidnapped the Children?
Well, just like in the original Argentine film, the kidnapping was not the work of criminals, but of the mother, Elena herself. When Pietro discovers that there was no real kidnapping, you wonder if he is losing his mind or if someone is playing with his mind. Of course, the answer is the latter.
What Was Elena’s Plan?
Elena had a master plan to manipulate Pietro in their custody battle for their children. From the start, when the couple’s lawyers reveal Elena’s past addiction and Pietro’s debts, the groundwork for their plan is laid. Elena drugged her children with her pills, kidnapped them in the middle of the night, and hired a man to make a fake ransom call, pressuring Pietro to get money from a criminal friend. She then recorded their conversation, where he confessed his involvement, while she denied any connection. At the airport, Elena confesses to Pietro that she only wanted him to get dirty money to incriminate him, never imagining that everything would get so out of hand.
Why Did Elena Kidnap Her Own Children?
While Pietro is still figuring out what happened, Elena sends him an audio file blackmailing him into signing papers that will allow her to leave Italy with her children. She asks him to meet them at the airport. Elena explains to Pietro that she saw no way out of their situation, as he was not willing to give up custody of his children. Thus, she orchestrates the kidnapping to take control and ensure that she can leave with them, no matter the consequences.
Who is the Mysterious Figure in the Country House?
In the final scene of the film, as the children play in the living room and Pietro looks wistfully at a family photo, a person can be seen through the glass door of the kitchen. Although the image is blurry and mysterious, it is clearly Elena, wearing the same trench coat over a black suit. Pietro stares at her, motionless. Although it’s an open ending, an earlier scene where Elena tells him that the kiss they had wasn’t a lie could indicate that they’re getting back together. However, the question now is whether this is genuine because this situation has made them see that there’s always a crack for every sewn one, or if it’s just another manipulation by Elena to keep the children.
