Missing (15)

Truculent 18-year-June Allen waits at arrivals at Los Angeles International Airport to collect her mother Grace after a seven-day holiday in Colombia with her boyfriend Kevin. She never materialises and enquiries to Colombian authorities via FBI Agent Park fail to turn up solid leads. With the help of best friend Veena, June 'acquires' Kevin's email account password and sifts through a data trail of electronic correspondence to exhume disturbing facts about her mother's beau.

LondonNet Film Review

Missing (15) Film Review from LondonNet

In 2018, writer-director Aneesh Chaganty visualised a father’s quest to find his missing 16-year-old daughter as overlapping windows on a desktop computer screen in the smartly executed thriller Searching. Chaganty’s film found an audience and turned a tidy profit, laying the foundations of this standalone sequel, written and directed by Will Merrick and Nick Johnson, which unfolds on computer, phone and smartwatch screens. The stylistic conceit which worked well five years ago has been polished in Missing, tumbling down a rabbit hole of electronic data and correspondence via email accounts, messaging applications, live camera streams, GPS services, mapping software and other apps…

Merrick and Johnson’s script seldom pauses for breath between cursors clicks, swipes and word-perfect keystrokes to sustain prickling tension, cranking up the emotional stakes with tears from lead actress Storm Reid as high-tech sleuthing uncovers disturbing facts about her family’s past. Narrative twists are copious, giving birth to poisonous conspiracy theories on social media channels that draw uncomfortable parallels to recent real-life cases where outlandish supposition and rumours have been widely traded as fact.

Twelve years have passed since June Allen (Reid) lost her father James (Tim Griffin) to a brain tumour and the truculent 18-year-old repeatedly spars with her protective mother. “You don’t understand the sacrifices I’ve made to give you the life you’ve had,” despairs Grace (Nia Long) during a heated exchange that precedes a week-long holiday in Colombia with her new boyfriend Kevin Lim (Ken Leung). Grace’s lawyer friend Heather (Amy Landecker) keeps an eye on home alone June during the break and on Monday morning, as instructed, the teenager waits at arrivals at Los Angeles International Airport to collect her mother.

Grace never materialises and enquiries to Colombian authorities via FBI Agent Park (Daniel Henney) fail to turn up solid leads. With the help of best friend Veena (Megan Suri), June ‘acquires’ Kevin’s email account password and sifts through a data trail of electronic correspondence to exhume disturbing facts about her mother’s beau. Utilising an array of digital tools and first-hand observations from local hire Javier (Joaquim de Almeida), who charges eight dollars an hour for his services, June turns private detective to find her mother. “Just because someone is your parent, it doesn’t mean they do not make mistakes,” warns Javier as the case warps everything June believes to be true.

Missing is a satisfyingly, suspenseful and serpentine thriller that allows us to stay one step ahead of June as she pieces together clues in real time on her devices. Reid’s engaging performance illuminates her character’s predictable arc from belligerence to terror and regret. Unravelling the mystery of Grace’s disappearance, including a conversation with a Colombian hotel receptionist conducted via translation software, is more satisfying than the film’s high-stakes final destination but the journey comfortably holds our interest.

– Sarah Lee