I'm not giving up on my Mom!
— June
Missing is an American mystery thriller film written and directed by Nicholas D. Johnson and Will Merrick. The film stars Storm Reid, Nia Long, Joaquim De Almeida, Ken Leung, Amy Landecker, and Daniel Henney.
When her mother Grace (Long) disappears while on vacation in Colombia with her new boyfriend, her daughter June (Reid) is left alone in the U.S. with the police unable to do anything on either side of the red tape. June takes to using all the technology at her availability to find her, but her digital sleuthing begins raising more than questions, and unraveling deep secrets about the mother she thought she knew.
Missing is a standalone thematic sequel to the 2018 film Searching, confirmed to take place in the same continuity, and carries over its format of being told from the POV of laptop and phone screens but with new characters and plot. The co-writer and director of Searching, Aneesh Chaganty, returned as a producer and story co-writer on this film; Johnson and Merrick initially worked with Chaganty as the editors of Searching and his second film Run.
The film premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2023, and was released in the United States on January 20, 2023.
Previews: Trailer
Tropes
- 20 Minutes into the Past / 20 Minutes into the Future: Similarly to Searching, Missing never actually takes place in its year of release. The majority of events take place in June 2022, with the epilogue happening sometime later: June is in a university dorm with a "fall 2024 dorm application" shortcut on her computer.
- Acceptable Breaks from Reality: Several minor technological realities are overlooked for the sake of the plot.
- When June's friend impersonates Kevin to recover a password to one of his accounts, the support technician reveals the existing password instead of resetting it. This is almost never possible in real life, and when it is, it's considered a major security risk (for exactly the reason depicted).
- Accessing a Google account from a new device usually triggers an extra layer of security, which requires verification by phone or alternative method. However, June is able to access Kevin's account from her laptop (which she'd presumably never done before) with only the password.
- Adapted Out: Done In-Universe to Javi when "Unfiction" does an episode on Grace's disappearance.
- The Aggressive Drug Dealer: James was actually a violent wife beater and an equally violent drug dealer and consumer.
- Bait-and-Switch: The film opens with a home video showing a young June interacting with her father, James, who suddenly develops a nosebleed. This, combined with the set-up of the main character dealing with the grief of a loved one being a motivating factor in Searching, leads you to think James died of some disease, said to be a brain tumor. He didn't.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: In the end, Grace looks pretty good all things considered for having spent two weeks locked in a filthy shack in Nevada. Downplayed by June who looks progressively more haggard and tired as the film goes on, but overall stays pretty.
- Broken Pedestal:
- While June is originally a fan of the true crime show "Unfiction", she loses any respect for it after they make an episode about Grace's kidnapping.
- While June is in full Deceased Parents Are the Best mode in regards to her late father, him being alive and a vicious abuser who tries to murder Grace and kidnap her naturally puts a bit of a damper on that.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- One of June's friends forgets his Apple Watch during the party in the beginning, and asks her several times for it back. June ends up using it twice. Once when she goes to confront Heather, she uses it as an improvised recording device. She uses it again in the climax to contact Javi to get him to call the police. However, she's able to call the police separately before his call goes through.
- Siri of all things. June makes fun of Grace for using Siri for everything on her phone, but in the end, June uses Siri to call 911 after realizing the security app in her childhood home is still opened on her laptop next to her phone.
- Con Man: Kevin turns out to be one, having spent several years in prison for defrauding several previous women. The police at first don't consider him a suspect, as he used his own name and seemingly came clean to Grace about his criminal past, but it turns out James hired him to seduce Grace so that he could kidnap her.
- Continuity Nod: June is a fan of a True Crime show called "Unfiction". In-Universe it turns out that Searching was an episode of such and June is seen watching a clip from the actual events.
- Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Detective Vick in Searching was an Anti-Villain who was simply trying to protect her son from being implicated in Margot's disappearance. Here, James Walker is an abusive spouse who resorts to murder to get back to his daughter.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Whereas David Kim was a straight-laced father searching for his daughter, June is a rebellious young woman looking for her mother.
- Didn't Think This Through: Did it not ever occur to Grace to warn June about her psychotic father who was imprisoned for less than a life term, and therefore would eventually be released? June's ignorance of his true nature nearly cost her everything. Similarly, even a cursory background check of her new boyfriend, who admitted to being an ex-con, would have revealed he'd been at the same prison as James.
- Domestic Abuse: The flashback reveals that James is a drug addict who physically and emotionally abused Grace (whose real name is actually Sarah), as shown with an unedited first video showing him being aggressive to Grace after his nose starts bleeding, Grace watching a video of how to cover up bruises, and James sending some threatening messages to her. This leads to Grace having the police arrest James for drug possession while she escapes with her daughter June, changes her identity with the help of Heather and later lies to June that James died in order to protect her from the truth.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Aside from June and Grace reuniting and having a better relationship, Javi is shown to have reunited with his estranged son.
- Evil Counterpart: James Walker to Searching's David Kim. Both are Knight Templar Parents who spy on their daughters' computers to try and find them. David is doing it after Margot is presumably kidnapped and attacked. James is doing it out of violent possessiveness, having abused and kidnapped his wife in revenge and to get at his daughter.
- Foil: James Walker to Searching's Pam Kim, both of whom are the missing parent of their movie's respective main teen characters. Where they differ is in their characterizations. Pam Kim actually did die of cancer prior to the film's events and was a straight example of Deceased Parents Are the Best, from what we see of her through David and Margot's videos. In stark contrast, James not only never died or even had cancer. He was also a violently abusive drug addict who orchestrated Grace's abduction, tried to kill her, and was possibly willing to do the same to June if she didn't go along with his plans.
- Foreshadowing: Several points:
- Kevin mentions early on that he fixed June's laptop recently. He actually installed spyware that lets James spy on her.
- June never sees her mother's face in all of the photos that Kevin sends her, just her from behind or slightly out of view. This is because she isn't Grace at all, but an actress Kevin hired.
- June tells Javi that her father died when she was very young and that she doesn't even remember the funeral. That's because it never happened, since he was alive all along.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus:
- As in Searching, the main character receives a message from producer Sev Ohanian that spoils the plot twist. When June is texting Angel about the Apple Watch, the preview of Sev's message to her says, "It's obvious: your mom's been lying to you. Your dad isn't dead, he's..."
- The alien invasion subplot continues from Searching, with the human delegation to meet the presumably alien's counterpart.
- Other than that, there is a metric trainload of extra information and trivia about characters that's just scrolled through during the whole movie... unless of course you pause and read it all during the convenient intervals where the screens aren't scrolling. This includes another few hints on why exactly Grace is so paranoid about June all the time.
- Minor details on the websites show the animators are very familiar with the modern Internet, including a random Pinterest result during one of June's searches, a scam comment on Grace's Instagram page, a "who's here from Reddit" on the livestream of Kevin's death, a "download the app" banner on the dating website, and realistic-sounding comments on the TikTok conspiracy video.
- As in Searching, the main character receives a message from producer Sev Ohanian that spoils the plot twist. When June is texting Angel about the Apple Watch, the preview of Sev's message to her says, "It's obvious: your mom's been lying to you. Your dad isn't dead, he's..."
- Hidden Depths: Sarah's computer has a folder of June's art projects, while June's current laptop has a folder simply titled "art". This implies June is artistic, but this side of her is never touched upon in the film.
- I Will Find You: The trailer makes it clear that June will do whatever it takes to find her mother, no matter how many obstacles come her way.
- Improvised Weapon: Grace uses a shard of a mirror, that broke when James shot her, to fatally stab him in the neck.
- In-Universe Camera: Like the first film, every shot in the movie is done from the perspective of a screen of some kind, including images from webcams, phone cameras, security footage, news broadcasts. Even the climax, which seems to break this format, is actually just a recreation that June is watching on Netflix.
- Mama Bear: Grace, who had just been shot in the abdomen, manages to fatally stab James in the neck when he grabs June and holds her at gunpoint.
- Missing White Woman Syndrome: Referenced by an online commentator after details implicating Grace come out, accusing the media of only caring about Grace's disappearance once it became suspected that she might be a suspect in some kind of criminal doings.
- Once More, with Clarity: The opening scene features the voices of people close to Grace offering condolences after James's supposed death. Once his true nature is revealed, the voices are heard again, but they are expanded comments of sympathy and concern over her escaping James's abuse. Likewise, the opening scene with James having a nosebleed was not a symptom of a brain tumor, but instead from his drug use.
- The Password Is Always "Swordfish": June is able to break into most of Kevin and Grace's various user accounts because they both reuse passwords. The fact that Grace used a variation for her Gmail keeps June from easily guessing it until the end.
- Plot Twist:
- Grace never went to Colombia in the first place and the woman seen with Kevin on the trip is an unwitting actress he hired to pose as her.
- James never died of cancer. He was an abusive drug addict that Grace turned in to the police, changing her identity and lying to June about what happened to her father in order to protect her. James also orchestrated Grace's abduction as part of a ploy to get June all to himself.
- Police Are Useless: Subverted. June thinks they are, but it is shown that FBI agent Elijah Park is actually highly competent, as he reaches most of the same conclusions as June without using her illegal investigation methods.
- Recursive Canon: In-Universe. The events of the film Searching were adapted into an episode of a Netflix True Crime series called "Unfiction", with June watching a clip from the show and then going to a website noting changes made for the show, including a picture of John Cho as the "real" David Kim, next to the in-universe actor. June ends up watching an episode of the series adapting the events of the movie, with Jasmin Savoy Brown playing her.
- Red Herring:
- Towards the end of the second act, June finds Heather's number was used in the encrypted text app, leading June to suspect their involvement in Grace's disappearance. Heather ends up murdered before June can confront her. It then later turns out Heather was actually being blackmailed and trying to help protect June. She had previously arranged for Grace and June to move from Texas to California under new identities after James' arrest.
- When June accesses the text conversations between Grace and Kevin, we learn that Grace is hiding something in her past, something she didn't tell her daughter about. This makes her seem suspicious, and even other characters later wonder if Grace was up to something shady. However, it turns out Grace is keeping her past a secret for good reason; she needed to get her daughter away from her abusive spouse, and hiding her past was her way of attempting to keep June away from James.
- Zig-Zagged to hell and back with Kevin: first, June discovers that he has a history of, and has served time in prison for, faking his identity to scam women out of their money. But then it turns out that he came clean to Grace about his past and the police testify that he'd served his parole and was using his legal name, which seems to clear him, especially when it seems he and Grace get kidnapped by a third party. However, it then turns out that the "Grace" that arrived in Colombia wasn't Grace at all, just a body double which puts the onus back on Kevin, at least until he's gunned down by police. Eventually it turns out that while Kevin wasn't the mastermind behind Grace's disappearance, he was working with the person who was. Whew!
- The Reveal: June's father James did not die of a tumor as it was heavily implied in the beginning. Grace lied to June about this as they were escaping his abuse after Grace had reported him to the police for drug possession. Following his release, he tracked June and Grace down.
- Shown Their Work: Like Searching before it, the film shows a pretty accurate depiction of the latest macOS system and modern websites, with realistic graphics and fonts that most other series lack or modify to near-unrecognizableness. Additionally, June's desktop and messages are quite realistic for a teenager in 2022.
- Show Within a Show: The film features a Netflix true crime Doc series called Unfiction, which has its first season document Margot Kim's disappearance from Searching. The ending shows that the events of Grace's abduction have also since been adapted.
- Stealth Sequel: There are a few instances of Freeze-Frame Bonus that reveal the film to be set in the same fictional universe as Run. One news ticker reveals that Diane Sherman, the antagonist of that film, has since escaped the corrections facility she was confined to at the end.
- Wham Shot: At least two of them:
- When June revisits Kevin's message to see the photos that he sent her, she rechecks the photos of he and her mother Grace having a trip in Colombia. June then notices that her mother's face is hidden and the first photo is live. When June plays the live photo of her mother looking at the plane, we see in the live photo that her mother slowly turns to look at the camera, revealing her to be a different woman who Kevin is seemingly having an affair with, meaning that June's mother Grace was never there and the actress that Kevin hired was impersonating Grace during the trip.
- Near the end, when the Ring camera shows Kevin's church pastor Jimmy coming to June's house while a frightened June threatens to call the police, Jimmy removes his hoodie, revealing himself to be June's presumed dead father James.
- Wild Teen Party: June throws one almost as soon as Grace leaves for her trip, using the emergency funds that Grace left for her.
