Missing – Review
111 Minutes, Rated PG-13
Written and Directed by Will Merrick and Nick Johnson
**NOTE: You can read Mark’s review below, then listen as he and Ryan discuss the film in more detail, along with last week’s big release: Plane. Remember, you can listen to all our discussions of this and every other movie directly over on ACAST.**
Synopsis:
When her mother disappears while on vacation in Colombia with her new boyfriend, June’s search for answers is hindered by international red tape. Stuck thousands of miles away in Los Angeles, June creatively uses all the latest technology at her fingertips to try and find her before it’s too late. But as she digs deeper, her digital sleuthing raises more questions than answers…and when June unravels secrets about her mom, she discovers that she never really knew her at all.
Missing is the companion piece to 2018’s Searching, starring John Cho as a father trying to find his daughter, who has seemingly vanished into thin air. Told exclusively through texts, video calls, and online video, both films feel like the 21st century incarnation of the classic “found footage” conceit.
First, the Bad: this format already feels played out. It’s predicated on the idea not only that everyone in the world leaves a natural digital footprint through security cameras and credit cards, etc., but that they also exist with webcams on and running 24/7.
This conceit often breaks down upon any close examination.
The Good: watched as a diptych, Searching and Missing can provide some insight into the widening gap in knowledge between even the closest (by blood) family members. In Searching, a parent realizes he has no actual idea of what is going on in his daughter’s life, a shortcoming that haunts him with the realization he may never get to correct that deficiency.
Missing provides the flip side of that coin, in which a child doesn’t truly appreciate what a parent means to them until they’re gone. Then they see them not only as an often-ignored annoyance, but a human being.
It’s an interesting bit of social commentary, even if the films themselves rely too much on the central conceit and the idea that they can simply throw twist after twist at the audience and it won’t become too much.
It becomes too much: moreso in Searching than Missing, but even so, it become so convoluted as to wring any sincerity out of the drama. This isn’t a designated whodunnit, a la Knives Out, so the ridiculously complex and involved structure quickly wears out its welcome.
In the end, if you haven’t seen either film, watch them together (especially for the Netflix tie-in that permeates Missing, lol, which is kind of clever), then forget about them, because in a vacuum, they’re essentially cotton-candy films. Entertaining enough, but quickly forgotten.
Missing hits theaters Friday, January 20, and stars Storm Reid, Joaquim de Almeida, Ken Leung, Amy Landecker, with Daniel Henney and Nia Long.
And remember, if the BEST thing you can say about a movie is that it’s “visually stunning,” then they’ve done something wrong.
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