Ellen Burstyn has no luck with her movie children, let me tell you.
In this movie, she stars as the Canadian mother of a college student who drives a beat up van from Canada to the United States and then disappears. The police barely help, so she hires her own detective (Robert Prosky, Christine, Grandpa Fred from Gremlins 2) to learn the truth.
The search for the van takes the retired detective to Maine, Nebraska, Colorado and Utah. For some reason, the cops offer no help at all and actually get angry that he’s on the case.
Into Thin Air was based on the real life case of Eric Wilson, who disappeared after driving from Ottawa to Colorado for a summer college class. It’s fictionalized somewhat, as was the documentary Just Another Missing Kid that came out the same year. In that film, director John Zaritsky had the interview subjects recreate their actions for the camera, which isn’t really a documentary, right?
You can watch this on Tubi.
