A movie to extend your trip to Cartagena – Missing (2023).
This is a fun movie that I appreciated even more on my second watching of it than I did on my first, mainly because I saw things I missed the first time around. It’s one of those movies that, once you know how it ends, it’s fun to watch things emerge in “real time” seeing things the characters don’t quite see. You know, kinda like how it was fun to watch The Sixth Sense after knowing that (spoiler alert) Bruce Willis’s character was dead all along. Whoa.
Okay, let’s focus. Missing is a movie about June Allen, an 18 y/o who lives in Los Angeles with her mom, Grace. June, or as her mom calls her – Junebug, is a pretty typical teen in many respects, if teens are rude to their parents, mopey, just want to party with friends. Grace is a seemingly tech-clueless, overprotective mom who asks Siri to do everything for her and demands her kid leave location apps on despite her being an adult. Grace is leaving for a romantic vacation with her new boyfriend, Kevin, to Cartagena, Colombia. She gives June some money for “emergencies” which June immediately sees as “money to throw a party.” While June spends her days and nights partying with friends and lamenting over her dead dad (it’s Father’s Day and we learn at the start that her dad died when she was younger from a brain aneurism), she receives many texts from her mom of fun times she’s having with Kevin. Awww.
Waking up hungover from a heavy night of partying, June races to the airport to pick her mom and Kevin up from the airport. But, uh oh, they don’t arrive. And here begins the story.
When June calls the hotel they were staying at in Cartagena, she learns they are gone but left all of their possessions behind. Weird, right? She calls the police but they can’t really investigate since it’s unclear anything funky really happened, and the security cameras that might provide some clue to where her mom is will be erased after 48 hours. June already spent most of the emergency funds her mom left, so she can’t just buy a ticket and head to Colombia. So she hires a guy named Javier through TaskRabbit to help her get the video footage – and run other errands as she tries to track down her mom.
Of course, things start to look pretty bad. Things aren’t as they seem, including some things revealed about Kevin – and potentially bad stuff from her mom’s past. Was Kevin a con artist after her mom’s money? Were the two of them abducted? Did her mom just run away with Kevin, possibly because of something nefarious in her past? These are things we watch unravel throughout the movie until everything slowly becomes clear in the end. And, of course, I’m not going to spoil it!
What I found clever about this movie – and something that might annoy others – is that the entire movie is shown from the perspective of a screen, whether a computer screen, table screen, phone screen, etc. This genre of movie (called Screenlife) basically only shows things as one might see on a screen – so video is available only because it’s occurring via a webcam, we see Google searches happen in ‘real time’, we see text messages as they come in, and camera feeds appear when a notification indicates motion has been detected. Lots of movies have been done in this style, so it’s not exactly “new” in that sense, but it was neat to see the story (and Cartegena) through this lens.
As for the setting, technically you could say the majority of the movie takes place in Van Nuys (the Los Angeles neighborhood where Grace and June live) since the scenes are through June’s devices. However, we see many depictions of Cartagena through photos texted to June – such as a photo of some fruity drinks from what appears to be a rooftop terrace with buildings below, a Cartagena name sign (typical tourist photo op with large letters and you stand by them to show you’re really in that), an image in front of old doors with pigeons all around, a carriage ride with the wall to the old city in the background, etc. We also see images from Javier as he runs errands, live camera feeds, and Google searches. And, actually, it’s fun to see the Google searches because they include images of maps so you get a feel for the city as whole in a way you don’t usually get from movies.
The hotel the mom and boyfriend stay at is the Hotel Poma Rosa, which although this is the name of a real hotel in Cartagena, the one in the movie doesn’t appear to be a real hotel based on the location. That said, the location is legitimately where a couple would likely stay for a romantic getaway, as it is on in the Northwest portion of Cartagena, near the Caribbean and relatively close to top tourist destinations such as the Plaza de Santo Domingo, the famous clock tower (that served as the main entrance to the walled city), and Centenario Park.
Apparently, during some of the later stages of production, the cast and crew members were spotted taping several key sequences around Arte Getsemani Galery at Cl. de San Juan #25-122 in Getsemaní. the background of some scenes, you can also supposedly see the Cathedral of Santa Catalina de Alejandría, Cartagena Gold Museum, Palace of Inquisition, and Torre del Reloj. I say ‘supposedly’ because I can’t honestly say I saw them – or knew what they were if they were shown. Some scenes / images are shown fairly quickly since they are mere backgrounds of live TV feeds or video chats, but the point is that there are many great images of Cartagena to be found in this movie. You’re not going to get much about the culture or history of Cartagena from this movie though. So – would I recommend the movie. Yep. If you’re okay with the Screenlife genre then it’s a great movie that kept me guessing for much of the flick. And even better, it was a great way for me to have an I-told-you-so “see, THAT is why you shouldn’t use the same password for everything!” moment.