Missing (2023)

Missing (2023)
Directed by: Nicholas D. Johnson, Will Merrick
Written by: Aneesh Chaganty, Nicholas D. Johnson, Sev Ohanian, Will Merrick
Starring: Joaquim de Almeida, Ken Leung, Nia Long, Storm Reid

MISSING (2023)
Directed by Nicholas D. Johnson and Will Merrick

A spiritual sequel I was not necessarily expecting but was keen to see. While 2018’s laptop-screen thriller Searching was about a parent looking for their daughter, Missing subverts this by having a teenage girl trying to find out what happened to her guardian. June (Reid) has had a rocky relationship with her mum Grace (Long), since her dad died from cancer. So she’s happy enough when she goes on a romantic trip to Colombia with her boyfriend, Kevin (Leung). However, after a few days of partying, June worries when neither makes the flight back. What’s even stranger is that the hotel clerk tells her they left all their luggage behind. June can’t get down there – she hasn’t got the means or the money. However, thankfully she’s tech-savvy enough to use various online tools to investigate, so takes to the web.

Missing isn’t like Unfriended or Host – it isn’t told in real-time, and we have a (sometimes distracting) soundtrack making it a more cinematic outing. So cue a series of beautiful but worrying scenes where she can hack her mum’s accounts and follow her digital footprint to discover what happened. It’s a neat story and, to their credit, the directorial team of Nicholas D. Johnson and Will Merrick tell it well. Both were editors on Searching and can use the same visual trickery to immerse people in a digital realm. The challenge with a story about screens is figuring out how to make the storytelling engaging, and they rise to the challenge. For the most part, the cyber-setting is mined for its potential, and they know how to explore facets of June’s personality while advancing the plot. Things like the songs she listens to, the Instagram posts she makes, and the half-finished messages she never sends usually place showing over telling.

Moreover, things like using the news and a made-up TV show, Unfiction, prevent Missing from being repetitive. The creative team can also capture how tech can give us insight into the secret lives of others – it can hide and reveal things about those we spend the most time with offline (think what you wouldn’t want your nearest and dearest to know about you). For example, the scene where she finds Grace’s dating profile is a bittersweet reminder of how we can know our parents without knowing them. Watching June cycle through her and Kevin falling in love is an emotional gut-punch and a standout sequence. They also convincingly develop a city district despite the protagonist barely leaving her living room! No mean feat, and it’s achieved through economic but effective world-building with Google Maps, tourist cameras, and an odd-job man for hire, Javier (de Almeida). Unfortunately, other important parts of the storytelling are not so refined.

Typically, I find myself critiquing films for failing to tell a more minor, personal arc with the main plot. Often, they’ll start well, but the hero’s journey gets lost somewhere in the third act. In some ways, Missing has the opposite problem. I’ll avoid specifics, though I want to make clear that I applaud the movie for raising so many intriguing questions and the writing team for creating such a strong hook. Still, as the focus narrows, it transitions from an exciting puzzle into something far more pedestrian. Yes, it has important real-world implications, even if they are somewhat cheapened by it being a popcorn thriller. But the simplicity of the third act negates much of the time spent building it up. And just as it promises to do something bold, I was left wondering, ‘is that all?’ Even anticipating another big turn because it seemed so generic. The darker, more intense tone is also out of sync with the Zoomer whodunit/howdunit, which came before. Its use of screens as a storytelling device also starts to seem absurd, save for an inspired punchline to a joke that’s been present since the start.

These criticisms do not mean Missing doesn’t succeed as a mystery per se. There are some genuinely clever red herrings and dead ends. There are also some terrific twists, including one that made an audience member a few seats from me gasp. And while the explanation doesn’t quite stand up to scrutiny, everything is accounted for. The crucial questions get raised repeatedly, and their answers are hidden in plain sight meaning audiences won’t feel cheated – even if one of them relies on someone making a terrible decision. More than once, I found myself saying, ‘of course.’ However, while unpredictable, the truth is less interesting than what it constantly hints at being. The big reveal also just happens and presumably could have gone a similar way regardless of June’s actions until that point. Still, Missing has a hell of a lot of heart, and that counts for a lot. So even if there is not as much intellectual reward as I’d have wanted for sitting through its surprisingly lengthy running time, the character resolution still lands.

Speaking of characters, Storm Reid is fantastic as June. She commands the screen, playing a part that is bratty and vulnerable in equal measure. She has good comic timing when required and can form chemistry with pretty much anyone she is paired with. In particular, watching her and Javier bicker after she sends him on yet another errand is a joy. I also fully bought into how much she cared about her mum, even if she doesn’t show it, so was invested in her quest to learn where she is. Most of the supporting cast is similarly good, with one exception – though I think that’s more about their part lacking psychological depth than the performer. And though we trust June from the get-go, both Long, Leung, and most others leave us questioning if all or none of what they say in their online videos, and our brief scenes with them, are to be believed. After all, how much of the things we see online can we trust? Except for this review, of course, very little.

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