After watching Searching five years ago, I really loved the overall story and format. So, when they announced Missing, which would follow the same formula, I was excited. And the film did not disappoint. The movie centers around June, a teenager whose mother goes missing while traveling with her new boyfriend in Columbia.
The Difference Between Searching and Missing
The story’s full of plenty of twists and turns. And just like in Searching, we watch everything through a laptop or phone lens. And that’s what connects the two movies. That and the fact that both stories exist in the same universe. And we find this out via June watching a movie adaptation of Margot’s story. And since June’s mom, Grace, goes missing in Columbia makes it harder for June to find her. She hires someone to get hotel security footage from their last day with the money she has left to spend. And she doesn’t have much money either, since she spent most of it on throwing parties at the house. I personally found myself completely invested in the plot of Missing. It went from one revelation to the next, and the end was nothing I could’ve ever predicted.
The biggest difference between Missing and Searching is that it’s from the kid’s point of view rather than the parent’s. They still have the same sense of urgency, with both just wanting to know what happened to their loved one. But June gets things done faster merely because she knows how to use her phone and laptop. And she grew up in the modern technology era. So even though she never had a smartwatch before, she figures out how to use it pretty quickly. In Searching, we also saw more of the classic Windows system. And we get to see more of the backstory unfold that way. But this time, all we really learn of June and Grace’s past is that June’s father died years ago.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I actually liked Missing more than Searching, and I say that as someone who really loved the first movie. Searching really only had a handful of main characters: David, Detective Vick, Peter, and Margot. Although the runaway theory persists for a while, it isn’t one that I believed was true while watching. Seeing David’s desperation in his search for his daughter, I also never thought he was a suspect, either. And this is under the assumption something nefarious happened to Margot, of course. So, it really only left us with two options: Detective Vick or Peter.
I felt like there were so many ways the story in Missing could unfold. Again, with Grace being in Columbia, it just opened up the story to more possibilities. There was also the new boyfriend that June barely knew. And in the end, the story resolves in a way no one expects (or at I least I didn’t). Missing is currently available to stream on Netflix.