Disney + streamed this documentary entitled Blink, which is basically a travelogue film of a family with a tragic twist. Three of the four children of the Pelletier family are diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic disorder that causes those with it to eventually go blind. In order to help their children log their visual memory, their parents, Sébastien and Édith, take their children on a year long trip around the world to do a bucket list.

The film then followed the family across the world to do things such as explore the rainforest or drink juice on a camel in Egypt or hike across the Himalayas.

Much of the travel aspect of the film was things that we saw before, but the real moments of this was the interactions between the family members and the moments where they approached the idea of being blind.

One of the toughest moments came when Édith realized that her youngest child, Laurent, did not understand what it meant to be blind. She handled it in as kind of a way as possible, but the boy’s reaction and responses were heartbreaking.

There was another moment where the family was on a cable car and it broke down, trapping them for hours. It got dark, it rained, they had little to no water. The inadvertent metaphor for being trapped in this cable car as everything went dark around them was almost to cruel to believe. It was the most harrowing moment on the trip that the family had to face.

It is definitely a challenging watch as the reality of what these children will be facing is always under the surface of what they were doing. Yet, it was able to maintain the joy and hope life can offer.

This is a very compelling documentary.

3.8 stars