Missing is a loose follow-up to the cult-classic 2018 film Searching. Whereas Searching told the story of a widowed father trying to locate his missing daughter, Missing flips that story and shows a teenaged daughter trying to locate her mother, who has disappeared following a trip to Colombia. The premise sounds very simple, but where it gets more creative is the way the story is told: every shot follows simply shows the feed of an electronic screen, with most of them showing June’s laptop screen.
It’s a very bold choice for the film and I feel like it’s the kind of style that’ll either be an immediate turn-off for someone, or make them like the movie way more than they would otherwise. For me, this style stands out from the found footage craze that gripped Hollywood a decade and a half ago that died out in recent years. While those films were filled with mostly dead footage (meaning shots where nothing was happening simply to establish that we were watching live camera footage), Missing still utilizes standard movie cuts and edits to jump around and skip over things that wouldn’t be interesting to watch. There’s something interesting to me about telling a story entirely through the perspective of a laptop screen.
However, while I really liked that setting, just as I did in Searching, the basic plot and characters of this film didn’t stand out quite as much as they did in the original. It’s still a good movie, and it does a lot of things to shake up the formula established in Searching so that Missing doesn’t simply feel like a cheap imitation of it.
Characters: 6/10 (x2)
The performances in the film are all good and it honestly does make me happy to see Storm Reid starring in another movie and knowing that A Wrinkle in Time didn’t end her career. However, none of the characters are very original and in some ways that works because it makes them feel normal and more like real people but what it comes down to is that in a few months (maybe even weeks) I’m not going to remember much about the characters in the film. Also, Ken (the mom’s boyfriend) who serves as a suspect in her disappearance makes some decisions that don’t really make much sense in light of what’s revealed along the way.
Plot: 6/10 (x2)
The premise and setting of this film is really good, but while Searching told a simple story with just enough complexity to have a shock ending, Missing gets a little too contrived to where I’m not sure who’s doing what and why at certain points in the movie. I don’t want to give anything away so I can’t go into detail, but the movie does have some confusing moments… but it also does have a good twist in it.
Action: 7/10
You wouldn’t think there’d be anything interesting about staring at a computer screen for almost two hours, and yet the filmmakers were able to convey a surprising level of intensity during key moments and there were shock moments that felt really tense. Doing that through just showing a computer screen makes it even more impressive.
Tone: 7/10
The movie has a few humorous moments and does get a little bit meta at times, such as showing that the events in Searching has been adapted into a Netflix show, but it never does so at the expense of the serious moments.
Pacing: 6/10
As well made as this movie is and as much as I do like the unique setting, the nature of it basically guarantees that, at times, you’ll be a little bored. There can’t be shocking reveals every couple of minutes in an investigation like this and you’ll inevitably want to see something happen that’s not just part of a face-time call or security camera footage. For me, I only felt that way a couple of times, but others will probably get that feeling more often.
Dialogue: 6/10
There’s no serious issues I have with the dialogue in this movie, but some of the emotional conversations held between characters don’t quite work for me. As you can probably guess, there’s tension between the mother and daughter before her disappearance and that gives June (the daughter) feelings of guilt throughout the film and seeing her reflect over old conversations with her mother where she feels she should’ve responded differently can get a little heavy-handed. It’s not a serious flaw, but it's still a slight detractor from the movie.
Creativity: 7/10
Like I said, I think this movie’s setting is very creative. If this was Searching, I’d probably be giving this category a nine, or at the very least an eight, but since Missing is following the same formula and just shaking things up, I don’t think it’s quite as creative as Searching was.
Visuals/Design: 8/10
Again, this is hit or miss for people. Some viewers might get bored staring at a laptop screen and video calls, but I personally did not and thought that was a really good way to tell a story.
Final Score: 65
While Missing doesn’t quite live up to its predecessor, it’s not really a disappointment either. If you enjoyed Searching and want to some a different story in the same style, you’ll definitely enjoy Missing as well.
Final Recommendation: Watch (if you liked the idea behind Searching)
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