The 2023 theatrical landscape has been transformed by the latest mystery thriller, Missing, which has been receiving lots of attention from moviegoers everywhere. Starring Storm Reid (Euphoria), the film centers on a teenager named June who uses technology to track down her mother who went missing while vacationing in Colombia with her new boyfriend.
Joaquim de Almeida, Ken Leung, Amy Landecker, Daniel Henney, and Nia Long also star in lead roles.
As June conducts her search, she discovers secrets about her mom that both shock and surprise her. The story seems almost too wild to be true, but how much of it is based on real life events? How true-to-life is it, and what story is it based on? Here’s what we know about the story behind the plot of Missing.
In short: no, Missing is entirely rooted in fiction. The film is a sequel to the 2018 film Searching, which was also a fictional story. Although a sequel, it is a standalone film with different characters and conflict. Sev Ohanian and Aneesh Chaganty, who previously collaborated on the screenplay for Searching, have also penned the screenplay for Missing.
It was directed by Nick Johnson and Will Merrick, who were chosen by the writers while the project was in development. “So we wrote a 29-page treatment for Missing from beginning to end, with all of the major beats, character arcs, and twists, and gave it to them to support their screenwriting and directorial debuts while we remained producers,” said Ohanian during a recent interview with Forbes.
The writers, who were commissioned by Sony Pictures, reportedly started with the idea to swap the premise from a parent searching for a teenager (as it was in Searching) to a teenager searching for a parent. It was also an aim of the writers to paint technology in a positive light since modern media often portrays technology as negative.
The movie also leans on the techniques of real missing person titles to create a more realistic feel and its thriller elements further attract the attention of viewers who instantly become invested in the characters and the plot.