Missing: Clever Script Leverages Social Media Apps, Spyware to Unfurl its Mystery

By Thom Ernst

Rating: B-

If Everything, Everywhere All at Once causes concern about the direction cinema is heading—all flash and edits and quirky perspectives — then Missing might leave some hyperventilating. But if you can afford the paper bag needed to keep your breathing under control, then you’ll likely find plenty to enjoy in this Google-approved thriller.

The story is told through the perspective of social media apps and spyware. Visuals are captured through laptops (where the camera is permanently set to “on”), Facebook posts, Instagram, dating sites, motion detectors, security cameras, and Google Earth. Missing doesn’t skimp on gimmicks. Whether through A.I. or home computers, if it can be used to see or be seen online, Missing includes it.

Directors Nicholas D. Johnson and Will Merrick, both cinematographers on Searching (2018) — also a missing person thriller told through computer apps — toss an orgy of social media add-ons dividing the screen into more sections than a pound cake at a church social.

The immediate impression is chaos mixing the technical know-how of youth with the ineffectual online habits of those 40 and over. It’s the kind of accepted ageism that can be off-putting to those of a certain age, and by certain, I mean certainly by me. But much of this is saved by a zealous and clever script.

Missing is the story of June (Storm Reid), an 18-year-old whose over-protective mother, Grace (Nia Long), fails to return from a romantic trip organized by Kevin (Ken Leung), her slick and earnest new boyfriend.

June doesn’t care for Kevin despite his efforts; perhaps June’s jealous of the attention Kevin gets from Grace. After all, for the first time since the death of her beloved father (Tim Griffin), Grace chooses to miss a mother-daughter tradition of celebrating Father’s Day.

A lot of unexpected things happen in Missing, but the most unexpected is that Missing is legitimately thrilling. It would be ingenuous of me to frame the film as a comedy—it isn’t—but there is humour in the film’s playful efforts to tease, taunt and drag the audience through a maze of misdirection, red herrings, and unexpected revelations. (Although one does wonder if the filmmakers aren’t having a bit of a private laugh when including the line “Bunny Cake is missing.”)

I am curious about the decision behind making the film through social media trickery. It all comes down to a good script. Co-written by Merrick and Johnson, from a story by Sev Ohanian and Aneesh Chaganty, the film finds clever ways to keep the story moving through the charade that this is all happening in real-time.

There are enough legitimate twists that the film would work as a standard thriller. And it’s not that the film makes any comment about the imposing presence of social media, nor how this same media can be used to bury and unbury secrets.

But it can be entertaining watching how the script justifies every moment captured on camera: a movie camera left running, a computer left on, a smartwatch, a smartphone. Siri plays a significant role.

This kind of thing has been done before, although not as well, and without utilizing the multitude of ways the world can invade our privacy. Missing still suffers from the logistics of having characters play out dramatic scenes while keeping in the frame of whatever device is recording them.

There comes a time in the movie when all secrets are revealed and there’s nothing left but a fight-to-the-finish third act. It turns out that not knowing is better than knowing.

Gimmicky, yes. Bent towards a younger audience, most likely. Somewhat ageist? Perhaps. But on that last point, chances are, I’m the only one who notices.

Missing. Directed by Nicholas D. Johnson and Will Merrick. Starring Storm Reid, Nia Long, Ken Leung, and Tim Griffin. In theatres January 20.