Missing (2023)
Directed by Nick Johnson, Will Merrick
Written by Sev Ohanian, Aneesh Chaganty
Starring Storm Reid, Nia Long, Ken Leung
Release Date January 20th, 2023
Published January 23rd, 2023
Missing captures our modern true crime obsession in a way that few films ever had. Every true crime fan dreams of doing what the main character of Missing does, diving down a rabbit hole of information on your way to solving a mystery. Of course, the main character of Missing has more motivation than your average true crime fan, but that doesn't change the nature of our excitement, all true crime fans want to investigate leads and follow threads to answers in the way that June (Storm Reid) does in missing, whether it's our family member that is missing or some stranger.
In Missing, June is a typically self-involved teenager who is constantly mortified by how uncool her mother, Grace (Nia Long), is. Mom is always asking her Siri to make calls for her, even while she's already on a call. Mom and June's relationship is strained as Grace is a working single mom juggling her daughter, work, and a new boyfriend, Kevin (Ken Leung), while planning a vacation to Columbia. June is of little help, she's only thinking of the partying she's going to do while Mom and Kevin are out of town.
Over the course of five days, Mom checks in rarely, which is unusual, while June parties. Then, when it's time for June to meet Mom and Kevin at the airport, she's left standing there for hours. Mom doesn't come home. Returning to her house, June calls the authorities and falls down a rabbit hole while investigating her mother's whereabouts. In the course of investigating her mother's disappearance from afar, she connects with a man named Javi (Joachim De Almeida), who lives in Columbia and who agrees to investigate on her behalf for a mere $8.00 per request.
Meanwhile, at home, Grace breaks into Kevin's email and begins to discover things about his past, his criminal record, and the many, many, women in Kevin's past who claim that he's stolen money from them. There's also a woman, referred to only as 'babycakes,' who has recently gone missing after trading messages with Kevin. This can't be a coincidence but the movie has a few more twists and turns in play when it comes to Kevin, some you won't be able to predict so easily.
Missing doesn't quite have the skillful presentation of its predecessor, Searching. That film used the medium of internet based sleuthing in service of a much better story. The story of Missing isn't bad but it's far more deeply convoluted than that of Searching. Where that movie had a relative clarity to its logical storytelling, Missing falls short. If you start pulling threads on Missing the story frays with far too much ease. The main plot is rather silly with characters making choices that don't make a lot of sense.
Find my full length review at Geeks.Media.
