Final Rating: 4.5/5
At the beginning of Missing, Miu, the six-year-old daughter of Saori and Yutaka (Satomi Ishihara and Munetaka Aoki) has been missing for six months. Every day, the couple spend their time after work distributing flyers in the town square. Sunada (Tomoya Nakamura), a local reporter, has taken an interest in the case, but despite keeping Miu’s disappearance in the news, the girl is no closer to being found. Saori’s reclusive brother may be withholding information that could help find Miu, but repeatedly performs poorly in interviews, and is reluctant to step into any spotlight.
After six months, public interest is moving on. And while there’s a glimmer of hope Miu could still be found, it’s fading fast.
Time is clearly of the essence in Missing, and yet writer-director Keisuke Yoshida instead presents a melancholy slice-of-life. An average day six months after Miu’s disappearance is mostly the same as an average day a week after Miu’s disappearance. The only real difference is that the people who know and care about Miu are a little more desperate, and the people who don’t care a little bit less.
In an almost anthological format, Missing examines the aftermath of tragedy without closure. For each scene of characters frantically discussing the missing girl, there’s an equally affecting scene of characters adjusting to their daily life in a world where they may never know what happened to Miu.
Sunada spends his days trying to crack the case, only to be told by the higher-ups that audiences are getting bored of this story; Yutaka regularly receives money for missing flyers from the representative of his union, but is informed over time that it is getting increasingly difficult to collect donations; Saori spends her free time reading internet comments on her interviews, which mostly shame her for being at a concert the night of her child’s disappearance.
Through its intersecting storylines, Missing explores characters trapped in time while the rest of the world moves on. For her family, Miu’s disappearance was the worst thing that ever happened. But for everyone else, it doesn’t really matter.
Missing is slow-paced, but consistently captivating. While Yoshida sets the stage for a compelling thriller, the film plays out more voyeuristically, with little actual plot beyond following Saori and Yutaka in their daily lives. Both generally reserved in public, Ishihara and Aoki nevertheless bring a constant undercurrent of devastation to their performances.
Even as they pursue different avenues to find their daughter, there’s an air of hopelessness to everything they do. They haven’t given up yet, but their hearts are barely in it anymore. There’s a passive despair present throughout the film, which only amplifies the horror when that despair becomes active. In the latter half of the film, a few scenes show Saori reacting to crushing revelations about her daughter’s disappearance, with Ishihara delivering a hysterical performance that’s legitimately difficult to watch.
The film’s B-plot revolves around Sunada and his cameraman, played by Gaku Hosokawa. Sunada, working at the local television news station, while portrayed as idealistic and sympathetic to Miu’s parents, is also great at making compelling television. People at his station look up to him not because of his commitment to journalism, but because his segments drive engagement.
While filming, Sunada’s cameraman will regularly interject to direct Saori to repeat good lines, or “make it sadder.” Sunada and his cameraman represent a sterile view of tragedy as content, but are also a sobering reminder that the only reason people other than Miu’s parents care about her disappearance is because they watch the news, and the news will only keep airing their segments if they make for good TV.
Miu’s disappearance is terrifyingly personal for her parents, but equally terrifyingly impersonal for everyone else.
Missing was seen during the 2024 Toronto Japanese Film Festival.
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