Missing: Film Review
I loved the 2018 thriller Searching, which told a story entirely through computer or phone screens, and the standalone sequel Missing, the next instalment in the anthology, does not disappoint.
The film follows June (Storm Reid), who is excited to have the family home to herself for parties while her mum Grace (Nia Long) goes on holiday with her boyfriend Kevin (Ken Leung) in Colombia. But the fun and games end when Grace and Kevin fail to return to Los Angeles and she can’t get hold of them. What happened to them?
This story is full of twists and turns and I’m not remotely exaggerating. You will not see the developments coming, let alone the ending. It’s such a clever whodunnit as it keeps us guessing the entire time, throwing out red herrings that point fingers at various people. I was gripped, on the edge of my seat waiting for the next clue to drop, trying to connect the dots and figure out what it all meant. There are so many lines of enquiry to explore and we are with June every step of the way.
It was truly amazed how the film could tell such a thrilling story solely through screens – through June talking on FaceTime, her Ring front door camera going off or searching through emails. Directors Will Merrick and Nick Johnson had to get really smart and creative to tell this mystery in this way. The amount of apps and web pages June has to use to solve the mystery is wild. I enjoyed seeing which companies licensed their services for the film – Netflix, Gmail, Apple etc – and which didn’t (the dating site is fictional).
Reid really anchors the story with a grounded performance that morphs from a petulant grumpy teenager to a spiralling, sleep-deprived would-be detective. She is in almost every scene and acts alone quite often but she impressively holds it all together and drives the drama home. She has great support from Megan Suri as her best friend Veena, Amy Landecker as her neighbour Heather and Joaquim de Almeida as her task rabbit in Colombia.
Missing is a clever thriller that kept me gripped throughout.
In cinemas from Friday 21st April