In The Vanishing Of Sidney Hall, Elle Fanning plays Melody, the beleaguered love interest of Sidney Hall (Logan Lerman), a novelist who grapples with early success. The movie charts Sidney's uphill — and somewhat bewildering — battle with his own work. Sidney courts and marries Melody early, just after the success of his book. But his inner demons, catalogued in his famous work, wreak havoc on their young marriage. In the exclusive clip below, Melody leaves Sidney.
"There's no room for me here anymore," she tells Sidney, packing up her kitchen utensils.
She explains, "When I'm with you, I don't feel like a person. I feel like Sidney Hall's wife."
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It's a tale as old as time: A brilliant artist makes something beloved. Then, the beloved thing festers, infected every part of the artist's life. Sidney's novel, which almost wins a Pulitzer, seems to be the cause of teen suicides, and Sidney eventually begins burning copies of the novel. When Melody leaves him, Sidney begs his wife to stay, citing his Pulitzer loss as cause to keep the relationship going.
"See? It's all about you again," Melody replies. Margaret Qualley (The Good Guys) also stars as a maybe-love interest of Sidney's, while Kyle Chandler plays the man intent on finding the brilliant novelist who got away. (His character name in the film is, simply, "the searcher.") Shawn Christensen, the writer and director of the film, has explained that the movie is meant to chart the steep bell curve of personal growth that occurs between the ages of 18, 24, and 30.
"There's a lot that goes on [between your teens and your 20s] and we wanted to start writing a screenplay that bounced back and forth between those different periods of life to see the differences and similarities in ourselves. And thinking ahead to being in our 30s," Christensen told The Hollywood Reporter at Sundance.
The Vanishing of Sidney Hall premiered at Sundance in 2017 and is available exclusively on DIRECTV today. The movie will make a theatrical debut March 2. Watch the full clip of Melody leaving Sidney behind, below.
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