EIFF 2009: The Missing Person (2009)

The Missing Person plays out as a modern day film noir: It has a mysterious, strangely charismatic leading man; a dark tone; a twisting-and-turning mystery to solve; and everything else you would expect. It's also cemented in today's society, dealing with issues in a post 9/11 world.

The Missing Person follows private detective John Rosow who is hired to follow a man in Chicago who is boarding a train to Los Angeles alongside a little boy. As he follows this man, Rosow starts to uncover the real reason why he's been hired for this assignment.

On its own, The Missing Person is not only a noir film, it's also an homage to the genre. It feels simultaneously like it's been soaked in a thousand noir films and yet is also an entirely new and modern film in its own right. The latter is due to the post 9/11 nature of the storyline, which, once it reveals itself, puts the film in an arena one might not have guessed it would end up in.

Michael Shannon plays our private detective, and boy is he brilliant. He's a strange, enigmatic actor playing an enigmatic and strange character -- a lurching, slow moving figure whose detective skills belies how he looks and acts. He has a dry wit about him (which the movie even makes a joke of at one point - something along the lines of, "Is that some sort of detective joke that other people don't get?"), but also tinges of sadness, which we find out are a result of an incident from his past. He's one of those characters we shouldn't like but do, maybe because in comparison to almost everyone around him, he's the one we'd want to stick nearest to throughout the proceedings.

The movie is set up in a conventional way, including having several twists and turns. But what's important here isn't necessarily the story -- which is a classic noir tale of "follow that man and see what happens" -- but what surrounds it, how it functions, and the characters that inhabit it. The washed out look of the film gives it a sad yet sophisticated feel, which offsets the dry wit and quietly played scenes of humour that would be flat-out hilarious if it weren't for the dark overtones (instead they provide that "quiet chuckle"). Director Noah Buschel handles the tone of the film very well, walking a fine line between intriguing mystery and humorous truism.

The Missing Person is a smartly written and plotted film, with many unexpected turns taking place as it progresses. But a turn of brilliance is that it never makes a big deal of (pretty much) anything, always keeping things on the down low, so to speak. This is first and foremost a character study of a man who's clearly tired with having to get out of bed most mornings, and whose past still haunts him (even if he does his best to hide it). Even when we come across such plot points as a possible kidnapping attempt or a betrayal, the movie turns it round to being about characters and how it affects them, instead of the dramatic turning point itself. You just don't see that very often in movies.

The Missing Person certainly isn't perfect, pacing problems are a serious issue in it. But even in those moments where nothing happens, the film is still carried on the lurching shoulders of Michael Shannon. Just as he deserved the nomination for Revolutionary Road, Shannon deserves an Oscar nomination for his role here. It is a difficult character to get right, but Shannon executes the role perfectly. The movie as a whole is intriguing, well acted, well filmed, and very enjoyable to boot. However you look at it -- noir homage or neo-noir -- The Missing Person works as a great example of an often neglected type of film. A little gem.

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