Disappearance at Clifton Hill ending explained: How does Abby solve the kidnapping case?

Disappearance at Clifton Hill is a drama mystery movie which was released in 2019. The movie follows a troubled woman named Abby and how a memory of a kidnapping that she witnessed in her childhood haunts her. It stars Tuppence Middleton, Hannah Gross, and Marie-Josée Croze. Disappearance at Clifton Hill ending leaves the audience with an air of deep thought and understanding. 

ALSO READ | The Vast Of Night Ending Explained: What Happens To Everett And Fay At The End?

Disappearance at Clifton Hill plot

The movie starts with the protagonist Abby’s childhood when she was just seven years old. Abby can be seen walking around in a patch of woods when she witnesses a kidnapping. She sees how two adults have attacked a boy with an eyepatch and have stuffed him into a car. It happens at the top of the hill and is clear enough for everyone to see. But she is the only one who has seen it and she also sees the car drive away.

The movie then shows Abby twenty-five years after this incident, i.e. when she is 32 years old. Abby is still shocked and haunted that she had witnessed a kidnapping and the incident has damaged her as well. She is known to be a pathological liar and the black sheep of her family, and yet returns to her hometown after her mother’s death. She has to sell her mother’s motel to the richest family in town as well.

ALSO READ | 'Raktanchal' ending explained: A final face off between Waseem Khan and Vijay Singh

Abby also decides to pursue the case of the missing boy at Clifton Hill. No one around her believes that it was a true story because of her nature. But slowly, pieces of information start getting placed together. She comes to know the name of the boy, whom the people believed to have committed suicide. She also meets Walter, who looks for mysterious things in the waterfall, has a conspiracy podcast about the whole event as well. Abby comes across a VHS tape that promotes a magician couple named as Magnificent Moulins, and the fact that they had a tiger and their son committed suicide. This boy was the same as the one who disappeared. The boy, Alex, was deemed dead even after nobody was found.

A man name Charlie Lake III comes to town, the owner of this entire place. He wants to buy their motel. Abby tries to get more information on Charlie’s history as well. Laure comes to know about Bev Mole, who was Moulin’s assistant. Bev’s husband reveals that Alex was injured by the tiger in the magicians’ act and thus he has hidden away. He also shared that Bev is forced to find Alex when he runs away and takes him back. This made Abby believed that Moulins killed their child.

ALSO READ | Homecoming Season 2 Ending Explained | How does Walter gets his final revenge?

Disappearance at Clifton Hill ending explained

She confronts the Moulins and asks them about Abby. The husband says that Alex was supposed to be taken to the farm but he was never there and later they were told by the police that he committed suicide. He believes Charlie’s father killed him. The wife, however, claims that Alex was a weak child and must have thought of suicide as an escape.

While returning back to Canada, she is caught by border security and it is revealed that Abby had been in Arizona, Phoenix for 18 months and pretended to have retrograde amnesia. But she was then disbarred from the US. Abby’s mother had rescued her and paid for her legal formalities as well.

Abby again tracks down Bev and her husband. The police arrests Charles III, Bev and Moulins for the torture and murder of Alex. Later, Abby comes face to face with a one-eyed man at the hotel. He looks at Charlie’s picture and says that he was in fact not a bad guy and he saved the boy’s life.

ALSO READ | 2036 Origin Unknown Ending explained: Is it all true or just a simulation?