Missing (2023) Missing Trailer Review: Storm Reid searches for his mother in the spin-off Searching

Released in 2018, Research it seemed like the natural cinematic response to a generation of people raised and fed by the screen. Directed by Aneesh Chaganty, it was based on the film language established in 2014. Hostile, a subgenre that producer Timur Bekmambetov dubbed “the screen of life”, in which all on-screen action takes place within the confines of a computer browser window or desktop. and frantic Google searches: ‘screening’, if you will. It was a brilliant, original and very contemporary thriller.

Missingthe spiritual sequel of Research, involves an all-new story and, aside from a clever reference to John Cho’s character in the prologue, an all-new cast, but retains the cinematic grammar and ethos of the original film. New writer-directors Will Merrick and Nick Johnson served as writers Research, and were largely responsible for co-creating this visual style. They clearly have a great understanding of how this unusual format works, how it looks and how its visual limitations require rhythm and counterpoint drama. Once again, under the astonishingly dynamic music video-style editing lurks fast-paced storytelling, a developing and evolving mystery, twists and turns, false misdirections and long-simmering secrets behind each new browser window.

The furniture is therefore very well prepared for a well-done reconstruction. But Missing it’s so entertaining and consistently satisfying that it might even surpass its predecessor in some ways. On the one hand, shifting the main perspective from John Cho’s naïve middle-aged father to Storm Reid’s Gen Z hero June seems like a particularly smart move: It makes a lot more sense than an 18-year-old. amateur detective skills to slowly unravel the mystery of your missing mother. From his side, Reid is an excellent and attractive company.

His performance also contributes to the fact that it’s incredibly emotionally richer than the original film. While both are stories of fractured parent-child relationships that are healed by a traumatic experience, Missing finds surprising and dramatically powerful ways to delve into this arc, with a revelation in the final act that hits hard. And while the screenlife format’s plausibility is certainly strained, as with Cho’s character in Research, June graciously leaves her FaceTime camera on all the time, even when she’s not online; never completely broken, Merrick and Johnson are finding ingenious new ways to keep the action on a screen (from a remote security setup to a smartwatch camera). Indeed, amidst the heart-pounding suspense, it also finds room for warmth and humor (a CAPTCHA joke is particularly well-regarded) and, more importantly, tells a story that would still work as a blockbuster with a large audience. movie. Here you are MissingThe real strength of: As elegant and clever as its format is, it is, fundamentally, a good film first and foremost.