Anime Protagonist Syndrome
Vanished in Paradise: The Untold Story (2019): 6 out of 10: Hannah Upp has been diagnosed with dissociative fugue disorder (Also known in the popular vernacular as Jason Bourne disease). After a hurricane devastates the island she is a teacher on, she simply puts her personal belongs in a car, drives down to the shoreline, and disappears.
It turns out this is not Hannah’s first rodeo. She managed to do the same thing twice before. Most dramatically in Manhattan where, as a pretty young white teacher, she quickly became headline news. The story was so big there actually is a New Yorker piece on it.
The best takeaway from the New York disappearance is they found her floating face down in New York harbor minutes from death. And when I say in the middle of the harbor, I mean it. A ferry captain found her in a shipping lane. This is not a slipped in the water and hit her head job.
She is alive
Everyone is saying Hannah is alive, but she drowned herself during her first disappearance and only survived through sheer luck. Why would people assume she is alive now? (That said, her mother driving around St. Thomas looking for her daughter is heartbreaking.)
There is a neat tale at the end where the police handcuff a white woman who is a drug addict (They claim to know this because she is in the black area of town) and wait for Hannah’s mother to come to identify her. It turns out she is not Hannah, and I really wondered why they then didn’t help the woman they had “rescued” I actually fear for her more than Hannah. Because let us be honest. Hannah is not coming back.
Decent documentary but alas, there is not much to go on (There is a Nightline piece I include below that seems to in less than seven minutes cover everything that The Untold Story manages in a little less than an hour.) The story, while fascinating, lacks any strong characters to latch on to. Going deeper into the diagnosis and maybe interviewing other people with the condition would have gone a long way.
Also rescuing that poor lady from the drug den. I want to know her story. I would like to know she will be alright.
Nightline Video
Screenshots
