Director’s Showcase / European premiere

The Missing Person

  • Noah Buschel /
  • USA /
  • 2009 /
  • 95 mins

Michael Shannon, Frank Wood, Amy Ryan, Linda Emond, John Ventimiglia, Margaret Colin, Paul Sparks

A witty, original and offbeat noir.

The ever-compelling Michael Shannon – an Oscar® nominee this year for his supporting role in Revolutionary Road – is the wry, dry anti-hero of this accomplished modern-day noir. Assigned to
find a lost husband, Shannon’s broken-down private dick finds himself gradually drawn into a mystery of unexpected emotional layers – and back to a crisis that links him inescapably to his troubled quarry... Wild at Heart meets The Big Sleep, in a post- 9/11 landscape.

2009 Archive

Image from The Missing Person

Comments

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  • #1 Leona Campbell / Wednesday 24 June, 2009 / 20:32 GMT

    Michael Shannon gives a brilliant performance in this movie, he really carries the audience with him throughout the film and he makes you see every nuance in the story. Personally I didn't find any of the characters rounded enough to care emotionally about them, the story is watchable but it would have been great to have a couple of characters a bit more rounded to allow the audience to get a little more from the movie.

  • #2 Richard Dickson / Wednesday 24 June, 2009 / 23:58 GMT

    Great central performance from Shannon, who holds onto the audience...just. The film is a little irritating at parts, slow and a little too full of it's own poetry, to help you understand or care too much about what happens to the characters. The Director is obviously more keen on the pauses in a film, between dialogue and plot events, than character development. Still, he gave it atmosphere and if it had been trimmed by about 20 mins, or had those minutes filled with more story, it would have had enough pace to be a very watchable film.

  • #3 Lindsay Hutton / Thursday 25 June, 2009 / 20:45 GMT

    "The Missing Person" is the best (new) film I've seen in recent times.The last coming close being "Let The Right One In". It flows via twists and turns and if you want to see a noir-ish movie that doesn't just regurgitate old ground then this is just the ticket. Fans of "Old New York" will relish one sequence in particular. The person who "programmed" this deserves kudos for an excellent discovery.

  • #4 Caroline Armstrong / Friday 26 June, 2009 / 17:10 GMT

    I absolutely loved this film! It had exactly the right balance between film noir and more modern humour. The plot was deliberately hard to follow a la Raymond Chandler, and there were other cultural references in the soundtrack and hints at Edward Hopper's work.

    The 9/11 slant wasn't too over the top, just enough to add the backstory, bring the right emotions to the characters and enhance the theme without being overly 9/11ish.

    I'd recommend this film to everyone, it was absolutely fantastic.

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