Critic Reviews

Missing, building off the related film “Searching” from 2018, manages to make a film about small screens feel electric on a big one.

A tight, taut mystery with incredible acting, this terrific film explores how our children use social networks. It has definitely opened my eyes to the possibilities of online sleuthing, and I highly recommend this film to anyone.

Directors Nick Johnson and Will Merrick sometimes strain the credulity of what shooting in-screen can do — June's laptop camera does a lot of heavy lifting — but the movie rarely feels forced or claustrophobic; it's just a whizzing, cannily of-the-moment spin on a familiar genre, reupped for the Genius Bar age.

Missing succeeds at maintaining a propulsive, nail-biting atmosphere and overcoming the boredom of its conventional narrative beats by treating each tool — Gmail accounts, iPhone photos and company websites — as a deeply layered puzzle, one that gathers and offers more information than most people realize.

I was only able to figure out the answer to about a third of the mysteries. But the rest left a thrilling impression that made “Missing” a genuinely fun ride.

Missing packs in enough mystery and intrigue that the film never feels boring. It ends up working as good, light and thrilling entertainment.

A gripping, well-told, incredibly watchable thriller for a new generation of TikTok sleuths — and a compelling argument to up your average screen-time.

Structurally, Missing can often feel a bit too much like Searching at times, but by the end, it finds its own path in this intriguing way to tell a mystery.

It’s all great fun, even if there’s no central performance as riveting as Cho’s in “Searching.” Then again, acting in movies like this is an admittedly uphill battle, one that Reid is better at when not having to rely on the occasionally tinny dialogue. Long, Leung and de Almeida, meanwhile, fill the tapestry of intrigue efficiently and appealingly.

Screenlife may never be one of the primary ways we tell cinematic stories, but Missing is a prime example of what the format is capable of, tapping into our increasingly digital humanity to excellent effect.