Aneesh Chaganty made an immediate impact with his 2018 feature debut Searching. While the Google alumnus was not the first to use the screen life format (that is, telling a story only through what we can see on computer screens and digital devices), Chaganty certainly popularized it with a compelling story of a father looking for his missing daughter.
In 2023’s Missing, Chaganty produces and gets a ‘story by’ credit but hands the screenwriting and directing to Will Merrick and Nick Johnson. This spiritual follow-up to Searching again revolves around someone who vanishes. The roles get reversed in Missing, replacing a parent who has to fumble his way around social media as the primary searcher with the very tech-savvy June Allen (Storm Reid), a teen who is looking for her missing mother, Grace (Nia Long).
While Aneesh Chaganty isn’t at the helm this time around, his influence is still very apparent in Missing. We don’t see June all that often, but as in Searching, we get a sense of what the character is feeling when we watch her type a message in a chat box but doesn’t send it, letting the cursor blink for a few moments before erasing the text and typing a revised message that’s more thoughtful. Anyone who has used computers would be able to relate to moments like these where we write off the top of our heads, sometimes in a very emotional state, only to catch ourselves and think better of what we’ve said. In lieu of seeing facial expressions or hearing line readings, this approach to conveying emotion and giving insight into a character’s thoughts is one of the keys to a screen life narrative, giving the story a beating heart when it could easily lean too much into the technical side and become cold and soulless.
Another wrinkle that Merrick and Johnson’s film introduces is the lack of money for the protagonist. Being a high schooler, June doesn’t have much in the way of financial resources and is entirely dependent on the money her mother left prior to going down to Colombia on vacation. This presents a challenge when the FBI’s investigation into Grace’s disappearance doesn’t make enough headway for June, forcing her to hire someone down in Colombia to help find clues.
With June’s limited funds, she isn’t able to hire a private investigator and is only able to afford the services of Javier (Joaquim de Almeida), an online platform worker. The inclusion of this character grounds the story as Javier is the type of ordinary person one would expect to come across in today’s gig economy. Being a father himself, Javier connects with June, understanding her desperation to locate her missing mother. The burgeoning relationship between Javier and June is one of the highlights of this film, helping to build the emotional resonance that the story needs to keep viewers engaged.
With the twists in the narrative and rock-solid performances from Reid and de Almeida, Missing is one of the rare films that manages to equal the trailblazer that came before. Merrick and Johnson’s movie doesn’t have the novelty of Searching, but their take on an online missing person search changes enough elements to make it feel fresh. This film is a great ride and anyone who enjoyed Searching should give it a look.
