Movie Review: 'See for Me' Mostly Okay Thriller Thanks to Star Skyler Davenport

See for Me stars newcomer Skyler Davenport, a long time voice actor making their debut as the lead in a feature film. Davenport plays Sophie, a former world class skier who lost their sight. Bitter about the loss of their ability to ski independently, Sophie has found a niche working as a house sitter. This niche has allowed Sophie to dabble in nihilism as they take advantage of wealthy clients by stealing something valuable that Sophie assumes the owners won’t miss and on the assumption that they’d be too ashamed to accuse the helpless blind person of stealing.

Sophie’s latest gig is somewhere in upstate New York in what, from the outside, looks like a massive ski chalet/hotel. Instead, it’s merely a mansion owned by Debra (Laura Vandevoort). Debra has just finished a nasty divorce and is headed out of town for a few days. Debra has hired Sophie not to watch the house but rather her cat. It’s not an important detail, just one the movie insists upon more than once. Sophie immediately searches for something to steal, using her friend Cam (Keaton Kaplan) over Facetime to locate an expensive wine cellar.

This drives a wedge between the two friends as Cam indicates that Sophie should be getting back on the slopes and not stealing from rich clients. The rift between Cam and Sophie is important as it provides the impetus for Sophie to download and make use of the See for Me app, an app that provides video helpers for blind people. This leads Sophie to meet Kelly (Jessica Parker Kennedy), an ex-military specialist now on administrative duty for reasons only hinted at.

The plot of See for Me kicks in when three men, unaware that Sophie is in the house, break in and begin to bust open a safe hidden in the living room. This begins what you assume will be a cat and mouse plot with Sophie, with Kelly’s help, hiding from the bad guys and for the most part, that’s what happens. That said, there are a couple clever twists on convention, one in particular that refreshed the otherwise rudimentary script. Sophie’s shades of gray are well used and the conflict that extends from Sophie as a character are well played by Skyler Davenport.

Skyler Davenport is the stand out of See for Me. Davenport’s performance is remarkable not merely because they are a genuinely blind actor navigating this plot but also because Davenport brings a number of unexpected shades to Sophie. Her moral ambivalence and bitterness are well established and become part of the plot in unexpected ways. I enjoyed Davenport's performance and how fluid and natural she makes everything seem.

If I am disappointed in See for Me it’s nothing to do with Davenport. Rather, director Randall Okita is the disappointing aspect. An artist by trade, Okita has been praised in the past for the beauty of his work and the challenging nature of his subjects. Watching a director with that reputation make a relatively rudimentary home invasion thriller is disappointing. See for Me is not a bad looking movie but it’s not a great looking movie either. The sets are fine, the cinematography is mostly good but given Okita’s reputation, I expected more.

The villains are a boring lot, an aggro guy, a boring guy and the guy who knows how to open safes. If the characters had names I didn't bother to make not of them. The final boss is character actor Kim Coates, one of those ‘I recognize that guy’ actors, and his performance is relatively one note. Coates is colorful if only because he’s bigger and louder than the rest of the supporting characters. His character is not particularly surprising and he’s not used in any really surprising fashion. That his character has one of those horror movie jump scare moments edges the movie in the wrong direction towards mediocrity.

That said, I don’t find See for Me mediocre. See for Me is mostly okay thanks to Sophie Davenport who is just interesting enough and just charismatic and sympathetic enough to make the movie compelling. A less interesting lead would certainly be the death knell for something as otherwise rote as See for Me. Davenport delivers a terrific lead performance and saves the movie, that is the easiest way to say it. I can give See for Me a weak recommendation solely based on their performance.

See for Me opens in limited theatrical release on January 7th, 2022.