Review: Techtwisted 'Missing' Updates The Thriller Genre's Operating System

Today you are a teenager and the next day you are very afraid of teenagers. The sunrise sunset.

Admiring the tenacity of Gen-Z (or perhaps the next generation) isn't what the new Missing Thriller is about, though anyone who remembers scoring can probably figure that out. A spiritual sequel to the 2018 film The Quest, this is a tech-focused movie classic: The Mystery of the Missing. Vanity in Missing: All the action of the movie takes place on our ubiquitous network of screens, whether it's FaceTime calls, Instagram stories or security footage.

You can call it a trick. However, I will report the medium as spam. For fans of the good old trick, "Missing" will play. Here's what you need to know about the film from writer/director Nick Johnson and Will Merrick.

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"Lost" is very interesting.

In "Missing," teen June (Storm Reid) is in increasing pain. His father has been gone since childhood, and now he's an angry teenager who has no time for his protective mother Grace (Nia Long) and especially his mother's new boyfriend Kevin (Ken Leung). When Grace and Kevin drop June at home and travel to Columbia, June imagines her friends, fun, and her mom's friend Heather (Amy Landecker) watching her.

But then Grace and Kevin didn't show up at the airport. And then your hotel said that they are gone and won't accept our bags. And then the ups and downs happen faster than a fiber optic internet connection, and Netflix's June Drunken Show live crime doesn't sound outrageous enough. He is immersed in puzzles that he solves on his own, relying solely on his computer skills (quite realistic to be honest) and the kindness of a South American worker named Xavi (Joaquim de Almeida, who steals the movie).

On the Gasp-o-Meter (how many times have I drowned in a movie theater while watching a movie while waiting for a patent), Missing scored a high four. Alias! The problem is hiding in the corner of the browser window! Use the Live Photo feature on iOS which allows you to study history at a film school - if only a film school existed in the geodesic dome of our post-apocalyptic climate society! "Losing" goes round and round because the day is long and while that certainly doesn't make it an everyday drama... would you be mad at a chicken that makes grade-A fuel tortillas? He's just doing his job.

It's fun to watch genres change before our eyes.

Often ink is spilled on the ingenuity of movies when they have a chance to win season gold. But while you're unlikely to hear Jane Fonda or anyone else reading Missing in the Best Picture category (it's a lizard-brain melodrama, to be honest), it's a prime example of a genre film eating up cut-out space. creative. in our cinematographic language in the coming years.

Get June's messy computer and text inbox. Who knows what clues or even Easter eggs might be hidden when this everyday space becomes the film's new backdrop?

Back to teen horror: For all its sensationalism, there's something undeniably appealing about how June and her friends are able to use the available digital tools for their own investigative purposes. I can't help but think how realistic it is to see these people identify cheap web hosting as an easy target to reset the password to unlock more clues. A teenager uses his parents' insecure passwords: In an age when K-pop sabotages political campaigns, this might as well be a documentary.

And visually, something that could confuse most looks good in Missing. Johnson and Merrick treat our world of online terminals like a beautiful store. It is not the “zoom cinema” that the pandemic has created so many times; is a film that encompasses the different means through which we reflect ourselves in the world for consumption. (And, if the situation warrants it, because of the possibility of your mother being kidnapped, by geolocation.)

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There is also some depth.

When he's not connected to Gasp-o-Meter, Missing finds quite a bit of nuance between his browser tabs.

Early in the film, June becomes obsessed with airing shows that dramatize real-life tragedies. As the film's plot begins to unfold, he encounters the pitfalls of such a spectacle: paparazzi flood his front yard, minor characters are interviewed on a talk show, audiences explore his family's darkest memories. This scares and frustrates him, and the audience is left to figure out his viewing habits, without giant neon arrows pointing them to morality.

There is also a discussion on abuse and exclusion that is worth continuing. But in my opinion, this thriller about the tightly controlled view of the criminal entertainment industry is simply irresistible. I'm suffocating!