‘Vanished Into the Night’ Ending Explained

Despite its wide range of middling thrillers, Netflix should be applauded for becoming the perfect stage for international films that wouldn’t usually get this much global attention. This year, we are bestowed with an Italian twisty thriller, Vanished Into the Night, that abruptly takes a mind-boggling turn halfway through and leaves us with a satisfying yet slightly open ending. Riccardo Samarcio‘s Pietro takes the lead in the first half of the film, bickering constantly with his soon-to-be ex-wife, Elena (Annabelle Wallis), until the unthinkable happens: their children vanish into the night while in Pietro’s care. The contentious couple reluctantly team up to cross legal and moral lines in hopes of securing a ransom of $150,000. Forced to borrow the large sum from a particularly lowly friend, Nicola (Massimiliano Gallo), Pietro embarks on a smuggling mission that continuously goes awry, only to unveil a nasty shock waiting for him at home.

Who Kidnaps the Kids in ‘Vanished Into the Night?’

When Pietro returns home, clutching a bag filled with cash, he sees his children sitting happily at the dining table, eating breakfast. It turns out his gambling debts were not the cause of his children’s kidnapping, but in fact, the perpetrator was much closer to home: Elena. Flashbacks reveal that she had snuck into his house after he put the kids to bed, drugging and whisking them away to her own home. She feigned shock and concern about the abduction and encouraged him to beg Nicola for help in order to implicate him with “dirty money.” Managing to catch Pietro’s dazed and baffled recount of his drug-smuggling escapade on a voice recording, she promptly uses this to blackmail him into giving up custody of the kids, intending to take them home to America with her. Talk about possessive maternal instincts.

Looking back, some bizarre details begin to click into place. For one, Elena managed to hop on a flight and reach Pietro’s house all on the same night as the initial phone call she received. While the trip may have been short, immediately being able to find a flight (which of course wasn’t delayed), and reaching Pietro’s home, all feels, perhaps possible, but a bit too convenient. Suspicion thickens as Elena never picks up her phone despite knowing that Pietro is on an illegal and covert mission — who wouldn’t pick up their phone if their children were missing!?

How Does Pietro Get His Kids Back in ‘Vanished Into the Night?’

Though Pietro is initially disoriented and likely believes he was just going insane, he gradually pieces together how Elena managed to pull off the faux abduction. He, fortunately, finds an empty medicine tab floating in the toilet water, which he assumes Elena tried to flush to erase evidence. Grabbing the tab and driving to Elena’s house, he realizes that she drugged the children with oxycodone, a drug that could still be detected in the kids’ systems by sampling their hair. Elated by this revelation, he immediately rushes off to intercept them at the airport, bluffing that he was coming to sign off their consent papers for the flight. Taking a leaf out of Elena’s handbook, he blackmails her right back, claiming that the heinous crime of drugging her children would overshadow his possession of dirty money.

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With his kids safely tucked away at home, Pietro decides to use the cash to pay off his immense gambling debt to the collector we saw earlier in the film. During this phone call, the collector also responds to Pietro’s previous accusations of abduction. When the children had initially vanished, Pietro naturally believed his past was coming to haunt him, especially since it was the same day the debt collector came to demand the amount they were owed, encouraging him to also relinquish ownership of the house. Before the grand reveal, we are also positioned to believe this, as the camera lingers on the window of the car driving away. As such, when Pietro finally rids himself of the bag of cash, severs his ties with the immoral Nicola, and pays off his debt, he is finally freed of his past shackles and can now turn over a new leaf.

Who Is Standing Outside Pietro’s House in ‘Vanished Into the Night?’

The closing scenes of Vanished Into the Night also see Pietro wistfully looking at a family photo and then turning his head to get a glimpse of a blurry figure standing outside. While we can’t be sure of who exactly this is, the beige jacket looks suspiciously like the one Elena was wearing. If it is Elena, could she be having another go at reclaiming the kids? Or is there a chance of reconciliation between the two? This ambiguous ending doesn’t necessarily mean the film is setting up a potential sequel. By only showing us a distant, hazy figure, Vanished Into the Night truly lets us make up our own ending, allowing our imaginations to piece them together or further tear the couple apart.

That being said, though the squabbling pair began in a custody battle on opposing sides, they do find common ground during the film — love for their children. Their gut reaction when they find out their children are indeed missing is to blame each other, as Elena points out that the kids vanished under Pietro’s roof. However, they quickly combine their anger and desperation to tackle the problem as a team, eventually leading to an unbidden kiss between them as Pietro embarks on a dangerous journey for their kids. One of Elena’s final lines to him was also that the kiss was real, despite all the other elaborate deceptions she constructed. While their relationship may not be the healthiest, there is a tiny part of us that roots for this dysfunctional couple, blackmail and all.

‘Vanished Into the Night’ Comes Full Cycle in the Finale

As such, the film comes full circle in the finale, as the events throughout almost mimic the couple’s custody battle in the opening sequences. Both Elena and Pietro arm up with lawyers and deliver low blows to each other in hopes of getting the better deal out of the divorce. Elena’s side goes straight for the jugular with Pietro’s gambling addiction, while Pietro’s side defensively responds by pointing out her history of opiate abuse. Similarly, Elena is the one that starts their blackmail cycle, doing the inconceivable, so Pietro has to follow suit. Interestingly, they both exploit the other’s vices, with Pietro’s illegally obtained cash reflecting his gambling habits and Elena’s unethical drug use echoing her opiate addiction.

However, during the meeting with the lawyers, Pietro won’t allow his lawyer to cross the line significantly, speaking up to partially justify Elena’s drug abuse by referencing her car accident. If the finale continues to mirror these previous events, perhaps Pietro would still be open to a reunion with her, however unlikely that is. With an ending that sparks so many questions specifically about their relationship, the children themselves essentially fall to the wayside. Vanished Into the Night shapes up to be more like a Gone Girl-esque romance rather than parents concerned about their children. Whether the figure outside Pietro’s house was simply a figment of his nostalgic imagination or Elena in the flesh, there is no denying the wicked spark between the two sin-riddled blackmailers.

Vanished Into the Night is available to stream now on Netflix in the U.S.

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