Scenes of the Crime

Gagnon (All Dressed Up) sets this predictable thriller at a remote winery on the Oregon coast. Fifteen years earlier, five college friends threw a party on the winery’s grounds. After plenty of booze-fueled revelry and argument, one of them—the vibrant Vanessa—went missing and was presumed dead. Now, Emily Fischer, the last person to see Vanessa alive, is a disgruntled writer on a middling sitcom who sees selling a screenplay as her only hope of rising out of mediocrity. When Emily spots Vanessa (or possibly her doppelgänger) at an L.A. coffee shop, she’s inspired to build her film around the mystery of Vanessa’s disappearance. With surprisingly little resistance, Emily convinces Vanessa’s cousin Brittany, plus old friends Lydia and Paige, to return to the now-shuttered winery for a reunion, with the ulterior motives of researching her screenplay and determining whether her coffee shop encounter is worth investigating further. After the women arrive, violence ensues. Gagnon dawdles on the way to a fairly obvious conclusion, with scenes from Emily’s script alternating with her narration of current events. The characters’ motivations are flimsy enough to flutter in the breeze. Little here is memorable. Agent: Taylor Haggerty, Root Literary. (Sept.)