There is, apparently now, a "Searching" universe, a world in which beloved family members suddenly disappear, leaving worried relatives to pore over their internet footprint, sleuthing through all their digital touchstones until they can be recovered.
I speak, of course, about "Searching," Aneesh Chaganty's surprisingly engaging 2018 film, which followed the anguished trials of a widowed dad (John Cho), after his teenage daughter suddenly disappears, using all the tricks of the internet age -- Google, chatrooms, IG images, emails, texts, maps, et al. -- to track her down in time for a rescue.
Nicholas D. Johnson and Will Merrick's film "Missing" actually opens with re-created shots of the last film's conclusion, taken from an episode of a fictional TV show called "Unfiction," a true-crime reality show, watched by June (Storm Reid), a teen whose own father, James (Tim Griffin), passed away when she was little, leaving her with a single-parent mother, Grace (Nia Long), with whom she is often in contretemps.
As this narrative opens, again almost entirely via a combination of laptop screen, FaceTime calls, Ring doorbell footage and assorted news clips, Grace is about to go on a romantic getaway vacation to Colombia with her new boyfriend, Kevin (Ken Leung), leaving June alone at their house in Van Nuys, where she's busy planning a rager with her BFF, Veena (Megan Suri), while avoiding the entreaties of her mom's longtime best friend Heather (Amy Landecker).
As the young women get their party on, they don't concern themselves with much of anything else until June goes to the airport on the following Monday to pick her mom and Kevin up. When they don't arrive, June heads back home, perplexed. Eventually, she determines something has gone wrong and begins to frantically search for her mom via all the digital tools at her disposal -- including a bout with Colombian TaskRabbit, where June meets up with a helpful older man, Javi (Joaquim de Almeida), who has his own parental arc -- and the help of a friendly FBI agent, Agent Park (Daniel Henney), who immediately takes her concerns seriously.
At first, it appears as if Kevin has somehow kidnapped Grace -- June unearths his shady past, which involved swindling women out of large sums of money, among other things -- but the deeper June gets into it, the more complex the situation becomes. It's the kind of film that throws out red herrings as if it were feeding time at the seal sanctuary, casting shade on nearly everyone before finally revealing its final twist.
As a storytelling device, it turns out our desktops can be surprisingly engaging, at least the way this franchise works it (no doubt, it helps that WiFi is always strong, windows open instantly, and apps engage without a hitch), though for people who work at a desk all day, the prospect of spending one's recreational time in front of a simulated computer experience might seem more than a little redundant.
That very familiarity, however, is most of the point: It is, after all, the narrative of the digital generation, leaping from one social media form to another, from texts (common) and emails (less frequently), to actual calls (almost never), with extended FaceTime chats liberally thrown into the mix.
For better, and likely worse, our brains have been rewired (or with the younger pups, simply "wired") in this way, snapping up small bits of info, and sticking it all together on the bulletin board of our consciousness until we gain a bigger picture. June's early assumptions about what has happened and why prove to be erroneous, but as she accumulates more data, and follows deeper into the wormhole of the internet, she eventually discerns the truth, such as it is, which turns out to be a far more satisfying endeavor than most of our trips into the digital void.
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None78 Cast: Storm Reid, Joaquim de Almeida, Ken Leung, Amy Landecker, Daniel Henney, Megan Suri, Nia Long, Tim Griffin
Directors: Nicholas D. Johnson, Will Merrick
Rating: PG-13
Running time: 1 hour, 51 minutes
Playing theatrically
Not without my mother: June (Storm Reid) and Veena (Megan Suri) go cyber-sleuthing in “Missing,” a fantasy film where all of one’s digital devices and apps work together seamlessly.