Above the Shadows (2019) Hey what's up guys. Today I'll show
you a romance-fantasy film: "Above the Shadows"! Spoiler ahead, watch out and take care!
The movie begins with the narrator talking about an invisible girl, who can neither
be seen nor heard， but isn't a ghost. The narrator turns out to be our protagonist,
Holly. In a flashback, she talks about her pretty older sister, and her smart younger brother.
Being in the middle and dubbing herself ordinary, she usually fades into the background.
Fortunately, her mother encourages and helps her be heard. She wasn't worried when her mother got
sick, since the hospital reassured the family that the treatments were working. However, her mother
died, and that's when everything changed. For Holly, without her mother, she started fading.
It starts at home with her sister, brother, and her dad only looking at her, when she calls for
their attention. During dinner, she observes her dad checking in on her sister and brother,
but ignoring her completely. She informs him that he never asked her anything, and her dad looks
surprised to see her sitting across from him. It slowly spread to other areas of her life. In
school, her teacher asks if anyone has a question, she raises her hand, but nobody sees or hears her.
By the end of the summer, she has completely faded from people's sight and memory.
This is cemented on the first day of school when she oversleeps, and nobody remembers
to wake her up. She confronts her family, but nobody would look at her, nor would they reply.
She grabs her dad's arm, and he screams in fright. He wonders out loud what it is.
Holly, not understanding what's going on, joins her family when they take a photo. However,
when she sees the photograph, she's not in it at all. At first, she doesn't want to accept it,
but it's hard to ignore. She has disappeared from sight and even memory of everyone.
Fast forward, she's adapting to her invisible life. She considers it pretty normal, since
she's living in a building that does corporate rentals, gets groceries delivered to her place,
and can help her keep a job. Her job is mostly during the night, taking sleazy photos of
celebrities, and selling them to tabloids. Holly continues to check up on her family.
Her brother lives at home in the basement, where he's working on an experimental film called,
'Top Ten Legs of the Last Decade'. He's using their mother's leg as the benchmark.
On the other hand, Her sister gets married, and is still very much obsessed with her looks.
Lastly, their dad has switched careers, and found love in commercial real estate. Friday-night
dinner is still a tradition for the family, and Holly always visits but doesn't join them.
Being invisible has its advantages, like getting to go anywhere, seeing everything,
not having to worry about rules or good manners, or even caring about what she looks like.
Obviously, the worst thing about it, is not being a part of anything.
One night while following a couple, Holly is seen by Shayne, an ex-MMA fighter. He asks her why
she's following the couple, and she's kicked out of the club. She's taken by surprise that he can
see, hear, and even touch her. She tries to stop him from walking away, but a co-worker orders him
to go back inside since he's needed. She thinks other people can hear her now, and tries walking
up to a couple of them, but she's ignored. The next day, she visits her mother's grave,
and shares the news that someone can see her. But she also confesses that she's still invisible to
everyone else. Holly remembers a specific memory with her mother, where she asks what will happen
when she dies. Her mother promises to be with her in spirit, and that the wind will carry
her over to Holly whenever she needs her. Back at home, Holly notices one of the tabloid
newspapers that she's been hoarding. It has Shayne on the front page, kissing a woman,
with the headline that he's been caught cheating. That's when she realizes that
he wasn't some random bouncer. She starts researching about him, and finds out that he
is a former world-champion MMA fighter. He was considered an underdog after winning
several fights against veteran opponents, which helped his career take off. He had also dated
Julianna, a well-known celebrity, cementing their status as the ultimate 'it' couple. But
Things started spiraling out of control, when photos of him cheating on Julianna surfaced.
The breakup was imminent, and his fans turned against him. It all ended when he lost against
his old rival. Shayne was expected to win, but suffered a crushing defeat against his rival.
Holly goes back to the club, and waits until Shayne shows up. She presents him the newspaper
headline from years ago, which he angrily throws away. She admits that she had taken
the photo. He asks her why she's telling him this, especially since that photo destroyed
his life. Cautious about revealing the fact that she's invisible to others, she instead
tells him that she wants to make it up to him. Incredulous, he declares that she'll need to fix
everything that went wrong, since the scandal broke to make up to him. Taking him seriously,
Holly agrees to try. He sends her away, but Holly suggests joining him and his manager. If after
5 minutes, he doesn't think she can help him, then she'll leave him alone. He allows it.
In the bar, Shayne quickly realizes that his manager indeed doesn't see Holly for some reason.
She helps him out during his meeting, by letting him know about what his manager is
planning on signing him up for. He asks how much it'll be paying, and the manager lowballs him,
declaring it's only 800 dollars per appearance when it was 1500 dollars.
Shayne leaves the bar, and demands Holly explain what just happened. She admits that she's
invisible. Shayne doesn't get her point since he can see her. To show that she's telling the truth,
Holly stands in front of an incoming taxi. She argues that if the driver can see her,
then he should stop. Shayne tells her to get out of the street, but she insists that she needs
him to believe her. He pushes her to safety, as the taxi driver honks his horn and scolds him.
He gestures toward Holly, but the taxi driver can't see her. It finally dawns on him that
Holly's truly invisible to everyone else, but him. Too tired and drunk to deal with the situation,
he instructs her to visit his place the next day if she's still invisible.
Dropping by Shayne's place, Holly discloses that she wasn't always invisible, while Shayne
wasn't always a loser. She thinks that if she fixes what she broke for Shayne, then things
will go back to normal for both of them. Shayne shares that he still fights and invites Holly
to watch. It's an underground fight. He wins. the manager pays him 300 dollars for the fight,
which Holly finds suspicious. Shayne claims that he does it because he loves the sport. Holly
thinks he should get better opponents and venues to earn more. But Shayne doesn't believe anyone
known would want to challenge him. Holly tells him to get her a list, and she'll handle it.
Researching the names Shayne hands her, Holly settles for an opponent because of a previous
steroid scandal. She breaks into his home, and texts him photos of the steroid pills
he's been taking. In her excitement, she drops by Shayne's place to deliver the good news.
He receives a call from his manager, who reveals that he'll be fighting the said opponent.
He asks how she pulled it off; but she brushes him off, advising him to worry about his training,
and let her worry about setting up the fights. While training for the fight, Holly spends time
taking photos of Shayne, which should help in fixing his image. He notices an alert
on Holly's phone about her brother's birthday, and asks about her family. Reducing her family
life into anecdotes, Shayne catches on to Holly's description of her sister, and suggests that maybe
she's feeling nauseous because she's pregnant. But Holly doesn't think so, since she believes
her sister is too obsessed with her looks to want to have a child. He asks if they never
talked about her, and she confirms, explaining that it's like she never even existed.
Holly drops by her sister's place to borrow clothes. She stops by Shayne's apartment,
where she watches his fight with his opponent. Despite the 5 year hiatus and only having 6
weeks to train, Shayne surprisingly wins. the manager cheers him on, as well as informs him
that his pay for that fight isn't as big as they had hoped. It seems the manager's been taking
a bigger cut on each of Shayne's payments. Shayne gets home, and Holly excitedly praises him.
However, seeing his injuries up close, she worries over him while he downplays how bad
the injuries look. He takes her out to the roof to watch the supermoon that night. They get into
a small argument, after Shayne asks her if she is real. She takes offense to it, asserting that just
because other people can't see her, doesn't mean she doesn't exist. Shayne apologizes, and admits
that he wants her to be real. Holly asks him to prove it, and he leans closer to kiss her, which a
journalist takes a photo of. Shayne tries to chase after him, but the man gets away. Holly tells him
not to worry about it, since she won't show up in the photo. Sliding back beside her, they
talk some more, and things heat up. They become intimate and wrestle their muscles that night.
The next morning, Holly comes across a tabloid, with Shayne and a shadow of her on the cover.
She's referred to as the 'shadow girl', and she's amazed to find herself in a photo again.
In the following, Shayne is facing off with his next opponent. During their press conference,
the opponent agitates Shayne with his arrogance. We also find out that Shayne has finally fired his
manager. As his last question, someone brings up' shadow girl'. The press assumes that it's
Julianna, and that they've gotten back together. Shayne replies that he has no comment.
After the press conference, Holly slips inside the opponent's limousine. She blackmails him,
with photos of him sleeping with an underage girl. She demands him to throw the fight against
Shayne. It looks like aside from setting up the fight, she's been fixing it too.
Dropping by the club after Shayne's work, Holly hears him take a call from Julianna. He confesses
that he wasn't expecting to hear from her, and Holly points out that he's a winner again,
insinuating that Julianna is only calling because he's relevant again.
After Shayne wins against his opponent, Holly reaches out to her tabloid contact,
to offer an exclusive on Shayne. The man refuses, since good people and hard work don't sell papers.
She changes her tactic, and instead tells him that his old rival, the man who defeated Shayne before,
agrees to a rematch with him. This catches his interest, and he checks if it's a legit scoop.
Nobody will confirm it since it isn't true. Holly scares him that if he doesn't print it,
she'll give the news to his competitor. He decides to go through with the news of the rematch.
Looking for blackmail material, Holly breaks into the rival's place, but is unable to find
anything she could use. She then drops by her sister's place to return the clothes she borrowed.
She finds her sister crying in the bathroom. Shayne was right. Her sister is pregnant,
but is reluctant to tell her husband. She wonders why her sister isn't happy about it.
Holly receives a text that Julianna was on a date in a lounge. To get the inside scoop,
she goes and discovers Julianna's date to be Shayne. He accuses Holly of spying on him;
but she explains that she came for Julianna, not Shayne. He chases after her. They get into a fight
in the middle of the street, with Holly asking him if the other night meant nothing to him.
She demands to know what he was doing with Julianna, and he concedes that he was curious,
and wanted to know what would happen. He also mentions that even though he thinks she's
great, She doesn't exist out in the real world. To defend himself, he argues that Holly used him too,
and helped him as a way to help herself. Holly acknowledges that it might be all
that she can deliver, and announces that she couldn't find anything on Shayne's old rival,
so she can't guarantee his win in the fight. It dawns on Shayne that she's been fixing the fights
for him. In anger, he asks that she leaves him alone, since he can't stand the sight of her.
Life goes back to normal for Holly. She continues selling incriminating photos of celebrities.
She also sees news of Julianna and Shayne dating. It seems the two
are back to being the 'it' couple. One evening, someone knocks on Holly's door.
It's Shayne. He admits that his life didn't start falling apart because of the photo Holly took. It
wasn't the sole reason why Julianna and he broke up, nor was it the reason why he lost the fight.
He admits to the fact that somewhere along the way he started thinking the world owed him something,
which resulted in him getting lazy, cutting corners, and cheating. He asks how he can
make it up to her, and Holly kisses him. He pulls away, and tells her that he cares
about her, and that he doesn't want to be that guy anymore. As a piece of advice,
he declares that Holly needs to face whatever happened. She takes offense to this, assuming
that Shayne is telling her it's all her fault that she's invisible. Before leaving, Shayne leaves
a flier of his rematch with his rival, and tells her that he hopes she comes to watch the show.
Holly crosses a mirror, and sees that her reflection isn't showing anymore.
It appears she's fading even more now. She hurries over to the gym to seek comfort from Shayne.
She knocks on the window, which Shayne hears. but when he looks up, he can't
see her. She calls for his attention, waving her arms around, but doesn't get any reaction.
Her heart breaks when she sees Julianna handing him a towel, and then tongue-massaging him.
Julianna tells Shayne that she'll be leaving for a shoot. She asks him how he's feeling; and he
shares that he's feeling ready to dominate his old rival. She comments that it's great to hear, since
she doesn't date losers. The statement bothers him. He inquires if she only reached out, because
he won the fight. Julianna concedes, but refuses to apologize for wanting him to be successful.
Worried that she'll completely disappear soon, Holly retraces where everything went wrong with
her family, as Shayne suggested. She helps her sister admit to her husband that she's pregnant,
by kicking over the trash can and revealing the pregnancy test that her sister just threw out.
She watches the experimental film her brother's working on, and realizes it's not as sexual as
she once thought, even going as far as to say that it's really beautiful. She comments that
he needs to get out more. She helps him meet a girl by tripping one in front of the house.
The brother rushes to help the girl up. She turns her attention to their dad, and asks out loud why
he never dated. As she's snooping around his room, it finally clicks that he is still in love with
their mom. Losing their mom didn't just happen to her, it happened to the whole family, but she
acted like she was the only one affected, ignoring the sorrow that her family was going through as
well. She expected people to be there for her; but she had never really been there for anyone else.
She pulls out the flier for Shayne and his rival's rematch, and decides it's time to change that.
She gets to the fight just in time, and overcomes her anxiety over crowds.
She gets close to the cage, and cheers Shayne on, despite him not seeing or hearing her.
He gets knocked down and in her worry, Holly rushes inside the cage. The round ends,
and Shayne is recovering in his corner before the next round starts. Holly kneels in front of him,
and whispers encouragement to him. As he opens his eyes, he finally sees Holly again. Surprisingly,
other people are able to see her this time. Before the fight ends, a bodyguard
approaches Holly to escort her out. She belatedly realizes that other people
can see her now. The fight ends with Shayne losing. But all he can think about is Holly.
He mutually breaks up with the vain Julianna. Shayne catches up to Holly, who's being forced
out of the hotel by security. He calls for them to stop, informing them that she's with him.
The two reunite for a kiss without using their tongues. The movie ends with Holly dropping in
to see her dad. He looks at her and finally remembers who she is, and they embrace.
This's Daniel CC movie channel! Stay safe and enjoy your day!