Missing (2023) – Found It

Released: 23rd February
Seen: 28th May

In 2018 a little film called Searching was released to an unsuspecting public. Now at the time we had a few films that used the “it’s happening on a computer screen” gimmick (also known as Screenlife) but none had used it quite as effectively as Searching did in order to tell a truly intense story of a kidnapping from the POV of a worried father trying to use technology in order to find his daughter. It was an undeniable hit, raking in about 75 million on a budget that was basically just a few go-pros and a pair of fairly well-known actors but with its creative presentation and twist-filled story, it managed to get enough attention that a franchise sprung forth. This is how we get the film Missing, a follow-up that proves that there is a lot more life left in this concept that can hopefully be explored.

Missing takes the core relationship issue from Searching and flips things, making the protagonist a young girl named June Allen (Storm Reid) who has grown somewhat distant from her mother Grace Allen (Nia Long). This rift seems to have started around the time that June’s dad died of cancer but has seemingly only gotten worse now that Grace has begun a pretty serious seeming relationship with a guy named Kevin (Ken Leung) which has led Grace to go on a vacation with Kevin to Columbia. A week later June goes to the airport to pick her mother up after this vacation, only to learn that her mother isn’t on the flight back home… In fact, she never even made it to the airport, Grace Allen is missing and it’s up to her tech-savvy daughter to riffle through her online footprint to find the clues that could solve this mystery.

Since Searching came out 5 years ago there have been a bunch of films that have used the little tricks that set Searching apart from other Screenlife films. Things like Host or #Blue_Whale showed just how intense this genre of film can be when handled properly so Missing has to not only match the suspense of its predecessor but evolve with the films that were seemingly inspired by it. Sure enough, Missing manages to pull off that trick effortlessly in a way that’s as engaging as the original was. While it might seem like you know all the tricks that can be pulled with this core idea, Missing has more than a few new ones up its sleeve that really help make it something special.

Having a much more tech-savvy person behind the wheel makes for a more interesting ride. In Searching our lead was an older man who was fumbling his way through the tech world but Missing has someone who knows their way around all the apps and can therefore be a little sneakier, figure out how to break into accounts as needed or be smarter about their research which helps push the story along at a much faster pace. For a film that’s pushing towards the two-hour mark, it has an undeniable pace that makes it feel like it’s just rocketing on which in turn helps keep the audience on their toes.

Missing has also found ways to play about within the realms of its visual gimmick. Once again this is a film that manages to never ever leave the confines of a screen but they’ve thrown in a few new creative tricks that really help the story feel more visceral. Ideas like having the main character watch crime reenactment shows on Netflix allow the movie to technically show things that look like a normal movie in the middle of this gimmick. It also jumps between devices, sometimes we’re watching what would be on the main character’s computer, sometimes we’re looking at their Apple watch and sometimes we might just jump to a whole other person’s computer. Each switch is well explained and gives us a different sense of what might happen, each screen feeling very different which creates tension as we get a glimpse into the mind of characters outside of our protagonist June.

Those re-enactment shows on Netflix also tie into another element of Missing that’s absolutely fascinating and that’s how it comments on the internet’s obsession with true crime and solving mysteries with minimal evidence. At one point a tiny amount of information comes out regarding someone’s history and we witness clip after clip of people online using that to declare guilt about a whole bunch of different things, which the film calls out in one brilliant line by June:-

“This is not a show, this is my mom”

It’s a stark reminder that the people who these re-enactments are about are real people who went through a trauma that we turn into entertainment, it also calls out the idea of internet justice being swift without all the evidence behind it, albeit mostly as subtext but it’s still there and an element that is kind of ideal for a film with this specific visual style to comment on.

Honestly, the only real problem with Missing is that it is just a slightly different version of Searching, which isn’t a bad thing (that’s pretty much what most sequels are) but it does mean that most of the visual stuff that was so impactful last time feels familiar now so there’s less of a sense of awe in how well the central concept is being pulled off, we know they can pull this off because we’ve seen them do it before so the trick becomes a little less impressive the second time. Fortunately, this is compensated for with a more intense dramatic story but it’s the one problem with the film that stands out on any level.

The honest truth is that Missing is just about as good as Searching was, delivering on the thrills and clever uses of technology that made the original so captivating. It just seems to do everything exactly right, knowing how to build tension with a simple notification or to deliver an emotional moment by how a mouse cursor moves on the screen. It’s a film that rewards you the more you pay attention to it, letting you notice the little things that make this world we’re shown feel so real. Full of some truly stellar performances and an ending that’s one of the most intense that this year has to offer so far, Missing is something you should go find and enjoy when you can.