Romain and Sarah Sauvant have just moved to a small village in Provence. He’s a police detective and she’s a child psychiatrist. Anticipating a quiet rural life, they immediately find themselves in the centre of a mystery.
If you want to avoid spoilers, stop reading this article now.
Lily is an eleven-year-old girl who goes missing during her mother’s birthday party. The last person to see her is her eight-year-old cousin, Diego. Romain and his team lead a search to find the missing girl, searching woods and nearby rivers. But she seems to have disappeared into thin air.
Diego – played superbly by Léon Durieux – is an unusual little boy. We first meet him whilst he is bathing when he tells his mum that he’s seen a cat drown – something he later replicates in a drawing. The following day, his mum discovers that a neighbour’s cat, Mimile, has indeed drowned. And when Lily disappears, Diego tells Romain that he saw her dress burning in the flames of the barbeque.
Diego’s mum is understandably concerned, so Sarah agrees to meet with the boy and talk through what he’s experiencing. This one scene alone is incredibly spooky and will get the hairs on the back of your neck stood to attention. At one stage Diego tells Sarah “I like it when you smile. You have the same look you had when you were young.”
In another scene, Diego is alone in his room doing another drawing. As he draws, we see him turning around to look at something. As the camera pans out, we see what he’s seeing – a dripping wet clown. I mean – clowns freak most of us out at the best of times, but this really had me hiding behind the sofa.
As the season develops, the relationship between Sarah and Diego grows, as she realises that he’s able to see things about her own past that she’s blocked out for years. We get a taste of that at the end of the opening episode when the boy gives Sarah a drawing of a toy she had when she was a child.
As the search for Lily continues, various suspects are considered. The party had a large guestlist and many of them could potentially be involved in her disappearance. Romain – a new cop in town – tends to rub the locals up the wrong way, but he’s keen to make an impression.
As you will have gathered, this is a supernatural thriller. There are elements of ‘The Sixth Sense', with young Diego having visions about the dead. The performances are all strong, and the storyline seems intriguing. Definitely one to watch.
Walter Presents: ‘Visions' is available as a boxset on C4 Streaming now.
