After her mother goes missing, a young woman tries to find her from home, using tools available to her online.
- Studio Exec in a pitch meeting: we need to get these kids off freakin smartphones and devices!
- Junior intern: Um, what if we made the movie set in a device?
“Missing” lazily retreads the same ground upon which the successful 2018’s “Searching” laid before it. The latter utilized an intriguing yet ultimately gimmick artistry by presenting the entire film in a computer screen POV. In “Searching,” the consistently excellent John Cho plays an ordinary father who is placed in an extraordinary situation: his daughter is missing, the police are unhelpful, and he must embark on a desperate investigation to find out what happened to her. While I enjoyed watching “Searching,” I was not keen to rewatch or continue reliving this POV aesthetic for future features. Crossing between a video game and our endless morbid fascination with true crime, “Missing” felt unwarranted and silly. And I was right.
“Missing” continues its predecessor’s approach and moves the action to another continent. The plot seems straightforward enough, June’s (Storm Reid) mother, Grace (Nia Long), and her boyfriend, Kevin (Ken Leung), go missing on their trip to Cartagena. So it is up to the eighteen-year-old to use her Zillenial tech wisdom to dig for clues before mom potentially ends up in a body bag. And this time, unfortunately, the lead character is mainly stuck on one screen and does not travel around as Cho did in the original entry. Will Merrick and Nick Johnson, who previously edited “Searching,” share writing and directing duties this time around.
In one of the best and most logical scenes, June utilizes Google Translate to converse with a Hotel receptionist that does not speak English. Frustrated with her limitations being stuck in Los Angeles, June enlists the help of Javi (Joaquim de Almeida), a local gig worker, to be her eyes on the ground in Colombia for the physical investigation. While Nia Long and Leung are underused, Storm Reid does a solid job appearing in nearly every scene. Plus, it is very nice for Joaquim de Almeida finally be a good guy.
There are a couple of thrills, and I was genuinely surprised by the twist, but the mobile device aesthetic killed any dramatic impact. The quick cuts to different apps with profiles of people talking resembled the Discover page on Instagram. As many people in this country have recently experienced working from home – it is not fun or cinematic to feel like you are on a Zoom call. I kept waiting for my manager to show up onscreen!
At the last minute, the film tries to shame consumers of true crime media while also acknowledging their own contribution to the “true crime dilemma.” It is a lame attempt to be wise, but it comes off as confused while trying to please everyone. Although, on a modest $7 million budget, “Missing” quickly turned a healthy profit (around $45 million), so inevitably, there will be more entries. I can only assume the next one will be called something like “Looking,” where an elderly person must navigate the World Wide Web to locate their midwestern husband, who disappeared after the Super Bowl in Alaska. Call me Hollywood; I’m full of ideas!
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