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The Missing film review
THE MISSING
Running time: 135 mins
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Tommy Lee Jones, Aaron Eckhart, Evan Rachel Wood, Jenna Boyd
Ron Howard grew up in public cultivating a thoroughly wholesome image. His light and breezy acting led to light and breezy directing. Now, as he approaches 50, his wish to perhaps have this impression revaluated has led to The Missing, an altogether more dour film than anything he has directed before. An epic tale of a mother's search for her kidnapped daughter that reunites her with her delinquent father, The Missing is a western, but nothing John Ford would recognize as such. Too slow and lengthy, it wears its heart on its sleeve as it peddles sentiment for depth.
What saves it from languishing into torpidity are the performances of Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones. Blanchett has established herself as an actor who can fit into any style, period or role with consummate assurance. As the tough and resolute Maggie Gilkeson, the single parent of two young girls running an isolated New Mexico ranch, Blanchett brings an unfrivolous fortitude that suggests were she born of that time she would have coped as well as Gilkeson. Tommy Lee Jones' craggy features and worldliness are perfect for the role of Samuel Jones, Gilkeson's estranged father, who has taken on the looks and culture of an Indian after abandoning his white heritage to live with various tribes.
Based on Thomas Eidson's novel, The Missing offers too many convenient coincidences to be wholly satisfying. They begin with the arrival of Samuel. After walking out on Maggie when she was child, he turns up just before Maggie's eldest daughter Lily (Evan Rachel Wood) is kidnapped by a band of outlaws led by an Indian witch (Eric Schweig). Samuel's arrival is initially unwelcomed by Maggie, who blames him for her abandoning his family and her mother's subsequent death. "You don't want to reminisce with me," she warns him. Known as a healer for her rudimentary doctoring skills, Maggie has brought up her girls Lily and the younger Dot (Jenna Boyd) on her own, though she has allowed the spurned suitor Brake (Aaron Eckhart) to share the chores and occasionally her bed.
When Brake is murdered and Lily taken to be sold into prostitution in Mexico, Maggie is forced to turn to her father. Keen to finally make amends, and using his knowledge of tracking and Indian ways, Samuel helps Maggie try to rescue Lily.
The Missing is made with conviction, even if Jones and Blanchett's passable Indian dialects are a rare example of its desire for authenticity. What is admirable is that in a genre best known for its macho male roles, its hero is a woman. But, despite the best of intentions, or perhaps because of them, the film fails to stir any real emotions. It's too overwrought and cumbersome, with little in the way of subtlety. Ironically, the 'Missing' in the title could refer to the light and breezy touch that Howard once exuded, and which would have helped here.
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