A daughter embarks on a relentless search for her mother in the new film ‘Missing’ starring Nia Long and Storm Reid
Last night my daughters and I had an impromptu movie night over a delicious baked bbq chicken dinner. Usually, there’s a big ol’ fuss over which movie we’ll watch but, that wasn’t the case. We all collectively agreed on ‘Missing’. ‘Missing’ tells the story of a teenage girl who goes on a desperate search for her mother when she doesn’t return home from a trip to Columbia.
The movie is a “screen-life” film which is fitting because our main character June is likely addicted to her Macbook. However, no one in my family particulary likes that film style. Still, it didn’t stop us from buckling up and taking the ride.
‘Missing’ Review: SPOILER ALERT!
I’m not a professional movie reviewer. I’m a blogger sharing my experience and thoughts. That means there are most definitely going to be spoilers below. If you haven’t watched ‘Missing’, stroll on down to Netflix and watch it before reading this review. This ‘Missing’ Review also includes the thoughts and opinions of my 17 and 8 year old.
‘Missing’ Review: Plot
Here’s what we liked
‘Missing’ follows the journey of teenager June, who uses online resources to help find her mother Grace after she doesn’t return home from a trip to Columbia with boyfriend Ken. Throughout the trip there have been plenty of photos and updates. It isn’t until June’s left waiting holding a ‘welcome home from jail’ sign at LAX that you begin to wonder “what happened?”.
Immediately June hopes into action and this is where my children and I venture down different paths of opinion.
I could easily guess what was going to happen next up until June hits the LIVE button on the photo from the airplane. At that point, all bets were off. Anything was possible. Everything I thought I knew was about what happened was wrong.
I enjoyed knowing how June was going to use technology in the ways that she did. It made it easy for me to guess what was likely to happen next. Like using Google translate, WhatsApp, Location features and so forth.
My 17 year old says at no point could she accurately guess what was going on. According to her “everytime I thought I had it, I didn’t.”. To her this movie was a complete “edge of your chair, shocker!”.
My 8 year old claims to have liked “all the details like how her moms face wasn’t in the photos.” But mostly she liked and was surprised that the mom made it.
We all enjoyed the plot of the movie. We loved that twists and turns and how the movie kept you interested until the very end. But, we did have our complaints.
‘Missing’ Review: What we couldn’t get behind
I won’t say these are things we “didn’t like” because overall we did like this movie. We weren’t nosing around on our phones or distracted. ‘Missing’ truly kept our attention the entire time. However, there were definitely things we just couldn’t get behind.
For me, I was stuck on June’s attitude throughout the whole movie. I know it’s probably regular teenage behavior but, seriously? June is so distraught on Father’s Day she’s throwing up drunk. As someone who lost a parent young and celebrated many motherless Mothers Days, believing she was that torn up about the loss so many years later was hard. Maybe it was the fact that her mother was out of town that did that. Whatever the case, it emotional distress proved to be helpful due to the picture she posted on Instagram.
Also, naturally, I didn’t like her attitude toward her mom in the beginning of the movie and I certainly didn’t like that she spent so much money on liquor. Back in my prime we were good with few Four Lokos and most definitely weren’t footing the entire liquor bill for a huge parties. And what is it with movies always pressing that teens need to have a huge party when the parents leave?
I would have went into investigative mode ASAP
Everybody praises June for her investigative skills but, I was like BLAH. Everything she was doing was basic. I would have closed the case too and probably sooner. As a matter of fact, my mom never being the one to send a photo or text would have set me into investigative mode. Why is Ken the only person whose cell phone works? BIG RED FLAG
My 17 year old and I both agreed that we had a hard time believing that Ken only have one email and one password for everything. Everything? EVERYTHING! As I write this I have 8 different emails I actively check and just as many different passwords. Is that normal? I don’t know. Maybe it is believable this guy only had one. She also was in awe that June was able to piece together her moms password. Which made me mad because it took you the whole movie to guess your own damn nickname that lady calls you everytime she speaks to you? OK.
My 8 year old says her only problem is that it took June so long to use Siri when she was locked in the room. Which, I have to agree because I thought the first thing she would do would be use Siri. Not call some guy on a totally different continent but, I could see how she thought that might be a good idea. Still, thought it’d the SECOND THING I DID not, the first.
What we learned from ‘Missing’
There was a lot to be learned from the movie ‘Missing’ about the power of technology and the internet. I’m glad my girls were so in tune with the movie because I did ask them if they were able to learn anything from it and they were.
My oldest girl said she learned to keep her voicemail clear and always pick up the phone for mom. Plus she learned how easy it is to find someone. My 8 year old said she didn’t learn much and that’s okay because I pointed out some things for them both.
First, I pointed how how easy it is to change the narrative of things online. For example, the video of June and her dad. Her mom edits it to cut off at a certain point hiding the abuse Grace suffered painting the image of a happy family for June as she gets older. I also pointed out that it’s easy to fake things and be fooled by things like photos. We all believed it was Grace in those photos but, it wasn’t. Our first clue was that her face was never shown. But look how easy it was for another women to impersonate her with just a wig.
In the words of Cardi B “No face No case”.
I also pointed out to them the importance of knowing what you’re posting online. For example June posts the photo of her and her dad. It’s helpful for June because in that photo are the numbers to the address she’s being held at. But for imagine if we were to post a photo with our address showing how easy it would be for creeps to find us? It’s important to keep sensitive information like that offline.
And most importantly, as we watched June experience the onrush of internet opinions about her mom, I shared with my kids that people are always gonna have opinions. Whether their opinions are fact or opinion based, people are always going to come up with their own conclusions. Don’t stress yourself trying to fight them all. As long as you know the truth, be confident and stand on it.
‘Missing’ Review: Score
My kids and I gave the movie scores. It’s really the first time we’ve ever reviewed or reflected on a movie and I think we’ll continue to do this. But, for now this is our ratings of ‘Missing’ starring Nia Long and Storm Reid.
| Name | Plot | Acting | Cinematography | Soundtrack | Overall |
| Me | 10/10 | 7.5/10 | 6/10 | 3/10 | 7.5/10 |
| DreBBY (17) | 10/10 | 10/10 | 6/10 | 2/10 | 9/10 |
| SharkBBY (8) | 10/10 | 10/10 | 2/10 | 0 | 5.9/10 |
If you haven’t yet, we highly suggest you go to Netflix and watch ‘Missing’ starring Nia Long and Storm Reid. We all collectively agreed they acted fabulously in this film and were kept interested the entire time. Our only major qualm is the way it’s filmed but I do think it helped keep the film interesting.