When I saw the trailer for Missing, I remembered watching a similar movie shot the same way a few years back – and thanks to YouTuber Jeremey Jahns, my memory is validated. Searching from 2018 has a similar style – the entire movie is filmed from a facetime call, desktop screencapture, security cameras, or other digital devices. Is the new movie worth your time and money though? Let’s find out.

When her mother Grace Allen (Nia Long) disappears while on vacation in Colombia with her new boyfriend, June’s (Storm Reid) search for answers is hindered by international red tape. Stuck thousands of miles away in Los Angeles, June creatively uses all the latest technology at her fingertips to try and find her before it’s too late. But as she digs deeper, her digital sleuthing raises more questions than answers… and when June unravels secrets about her mom, she discovers that she never really knew her at all.

Missing is directed by Will Merrick and Nick Johnson. These are the same editing duo behind 2018’s Searching, so the editing style in this film should be similar. Storm Reid is a young actress, who already has a few films under her belt. Most notably: The Invisible Man, and A Wrinkle In Time. She is the anchor of this film – if Reid’s acting was not up to par, the entire project would have flopped. Thankfully, she does an amazing job.

The film kept me engaged throughout the 2 hour runtime. I was still annoyed at how long it took for the user to hover the mouse over an object and decide to click on it – like there is some kind of delayed reaction. No sane person takes 5 seconds to decide to close an application. But aside from that, the editing in the film is genious. One would think it would be simple to do a movie in this style, but I can tell you – it’s not.

There are several twists and turns that keep the viewer engaged. The twists aren’t necessarily easy to guess either, w hich is refreshing.

Yet another movie that I can recommend in the month of January – an astounding achievement. M3ghan, Plane, and now Missing are all worthy of your time.

I give Missing 3.5/5 stars