'Missing' Finds Its Way to Theaters This Weekend

Theaters will see a winter-time lull this weekend as only one new wide release, the techno-thriller Missing, will hit screens over the weekend. Missing is a sequel to 2018's Searching, and it's getting good reviews. The weekend, however, will probably belong to Avatar: The Way of Water again. The mega-sequel continues to be the only big-time show in town, and it's likely to add to its string of chart-topping weekends. Read on for details.

Via The AV Club.

Screenlife films—that is, films that are shot and edited as if they’re being recorded and displayed on a computer desktop through the apps and programs we use every day—have created a rich niche for themselves within the found footage horror subgenre. Outside the realm of horror, no film has used the format with as much success as 2018’s Searching, a thriller built around investigation through technology rather than scares. Missing is an attempt to replicate the success of Searching by the previous film’s editors, Nicholas D. Johnson and Will Merrick, and though this is their first foray into feature screenwriting and directing, they prove to be extremely capable storytellers within the screenlife niche.

Missing finds us occupying the desktop of a teenager named June (Storm Reid) as her mom Grace (Nia Long) and her mom’s boyfriend Kevin (Ken Leung) head to Colombia for a week-long vacation. However, when Grace and Kevin fail to meet June at the airport after their return flight, June realizes that the FBI’s limited jurisdiction in Colombia is going to be a hindrance to finding her mother. With the help of a friendly gofer (Joaquim de Almeida) hired on the Colombian equivalent of TaskRabbit, June sets out to find the evidence that will reveal the fates of Grace and Kevin.

Those familiar with Missing’s trailer may think the mystery has already been revealed, but thankfully Johnson and Merrick have a few tricks up their sleeve that make the film less predictable than it initially appears. To delve into details would be spoiling the experience, but the film builds a pretty potent conflict around the boundaries of parental trust and the adolescent realization that one’s parents aren’t always who they appear to be, nor are a person’s motives always as simple as the outcome of their actions. This wouldn’t come across nearly as well without a very convincing performance by Storm Reid, who conveys the inner turmoil of a sullen young adult in a time of crisis without tipping over into obnoxious, melodramatic parody.

Get the rest of the story at The AV Club.