‘Missing’ review: Thriller sequel follows digital breadcrumbs

In 2018, director Aneesh Chaganty and co-writer Sev Ohanian submitted a nifty little thriller, Searching. This work comments on the way we live now: online. In it, John Cho searches for his missing daughter through digital debris and parses the obvious visual clues. It was done on a computer screen using a method.

“Searching” was a critical and commercial success, and the sequel, “Missing,” written and directed by Nick Johnson and Will Merrick, with stories by Chaganty and Ohanian, hits theaters this week. This time, it’s the parent who’s gone missing, and when her daughter searches for her mother, she finds a host of new horrors and techniques and true crime triumphs.

Johnson and Merrick use the format set by “search,” but the technological, cultural and media landscape has evolved, including the fire hose of streaming true crime content. The only time the camera is freed from the laptop screen is during a fake reenactment of Netflix’s true crime series called “Unfiction.” We’ve also seen a surge in TikTok detectives and Twitter police doing armchair analysis on every missing person case.

If you’ve seen “Searching,” you might have a hunch that the answer will be planted before moviegoers, but “Missing” takes some pretty wild and crazy twists and turns on its way to its destination. through Her college-going 18-year-old June (Storm her lead) is on vacation in Columbia with her mother Grace (Nia her long) with her new boyfriend Kevin (Ken her Leon). I just want to rage with her friends while I’m at it. However, when a hungover June arrives at LAX to pick them up a week later, Grace and Kevin are no-shows.

Relying on her Google prowess, which is inherent in Gen Z digital natives, June begins searching for her missing mother, combing through traveler live cams and bank statements, and working with TaskRabbit-type helpers. , hired and run by Javi (Joaquim de Almeida). Colombian footwork. June is smart, resourceful, and bold. The way she cracks passwords and navigates mazes of information will make anyone ponder how much data tracking should be left on in their Google account. is it? Depends on what you are doing.

The suspenseful “Missing” progresses at a breakneck pace through nearly two hours of shocking twists and turns. It’s certainly funny, but it also takes on a somber tone as it considers grief, loss, and intimate partner violence in a very real way, backed by headlines ripped from the news. TikTok is very attractive.

That’s what makes movies like ‘Searching’ and ‘Missing’ so appealing. Not only are they high-concept thrillers featuring melodramatic acting (Reed is likable, but I doubt she’ll be nominated for an Independent Spirit Award like Cho. ), they also feel authentic to our way of life. Quirky moment.

We experience much of our reality online, unconsciously clicking and swiping and littering with the artifacts of our lived experience. But “Searching” and “Missing” reiterate that despite the breadcrumbs of humanity reflected in the photos, videos, and 0s and 1s, nothing is like the real thing, for better or worse.

Walsh is a film critic for the Tribune News Service.