Rating: 8.2
Premise: After her mother goes missing, a young woman tries to find her from home, using tools available to her online.
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Sony - Stage 6 Films
Directed by Nick Johnson & Will Merrick
Screenplay by Nick Johnson & Will Merrick
Story by Sev Ohanian & Aneesh Chaganty
Cast: Storm Reid, Nia Long, Joaquim de Almeida, Amy Landecker, Daniel Henney, Ken Leung
Runtime: 1hr 51min
Rating: 14A
Drama, Thriller
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IMDb Rating: 7.4/10
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 84%
RT Audience Score: 91%
RT Critic Average: 6.8/10
RT Audience Average: 4.4/5
Metacritic Score: 66
CinemaScore: B
Letterboxd: 3.6/5
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My Review:
I honestly did not expect myself to enjoy “Missing” as much as I did! Typically I don’t enjoy this format of film; the computer screen movie, as I am more of a traditionalist. However I have to admit the level of creativity that went into this was pretty impressive! I was amazed at how gripping and tense the movie was. All the ways they found to progress the plot and show different things all from the screen of a computer were so clever! This might very well be the first time I have really enjoyed a movie in this format! Sure, it might break all the rules of cinematography and filmmaking, but for what it’s worth it really worked for me. (Except for the one shot where they had the windows open on the computer screen literally do a dolly zoom effect… that pulled me out because while it was a camera trick you could have done in that moment, a computer screen would just never do that. But oh well… that’s me being nitpicky.) I also was quite impressed to find out that the Mac OS, iOS, and Windows screens we see with all the different apps open were completely constructed in Adobe Video & Motion… it never crossed my mind that they weren’t just screen recording!
I saw “Missing”’s predecessor, “Searching”, a few days ago in preparation for this film, and I have to say while that film does have a lot of buzz surrounding it, I ended up liking this one more! This was a good little thriller! I was worried it would just pull from the same bag of tricks as “Searching”, (because how much can you do with a computer screen thriller? Turns out, a lot.) but was delightfully surprised when I realized it was doing something completely different! Thanks to using new and different pieces of technology (Snapchat, smartwatches, even Netflix), having a bigger scope of characters and locations and an overall thrilling mystery… “Missing” turned out to be a blast! I can’t really say it’s a masterpiece or anything overly remarkable, but it was a fun way to spend 2 hours!
I thought I knew exactly where this movie was going after watching the trailer. I thought the trailer revealed too much and that I had it all figured out before it even began. This is where my love for this movie comes in… it actually had me on the edge of my seat and kept me guessing throughout the entire movie! The film is chalk full of fun and unpredictable twists and turns that really kept me on my toes, and it was the early realization that I truly knew nothing about where the mystery plot was headed that really captured my attention. I love a movie that can make me feel like I know nothing, and then slowly reveal things to me at the same time as the character realizes it. It’s so much fun, and really puts you in the character’s shoes! And the best part is the script is so clever; the clues are all there except you don’t realize how obvious it was until later! There were so many awesome “aha” moments that made this movie such a fun ride! Unfortunately the twists do get a little preposterous by the end, but I still bought into it! The best part was easily the middle of the film, where some twists had been revealed but you still had no idea where it was going. I just had so much fun with it!
The acting was pretty good too! You have to give credit to Storm Reid for carrying an entire film where you are essentially seeing everything through her eyes, especially when we don’t get typical cinematography techniques to connect us with her character. It just somehow all works in an unconventional way to create this thrilling, fun ride of a film! It really isn’t anything special, but it's a fun way to spend 2 hours and employs a pretty creative format of filmmaking. I was happily surprised that it worked for me and I would definitely recommend it!
Fun Fact: Like its predecessor Searching (2018), background news articles apparently reference a potential alien invasion happening concurrently with the events of this movie.
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