The Missing Person

John Rosow is a private eye, in the mould of Raymond Chandler's film noir heroes. He lives in his suit and tie; he smokes where he's not supposed to, and delivers cynical one-liners without blinking. The only difference between him and his colleagues from a couple of decades ago is that he doesn't wear a hat, and carries a cell phone instead of a gun. A modern day film noir, "The Missing Person" is a stylised thriller full of oddball character -meddling FBI agents, catholic cabdrivers, tough-girl secretaries, and of course femme fatales.

One day Rosow is given the assignment to follow an unnamed middle-aged man, travelling with a Mexican boy. What at first seems to be a case of child abduction turns out to be something completely different. The man he is following is in fact a family man who went missing after 9/11, seizing the chance to start a new life in the aftermath of the tragedy.

Tracing the psychological fallout of 9/11 "The Missing Person" plays like a revisionist cinematic essay, calling to mind Todd Haynes pastiche of 1950's melodramas "Far from Heaven."
HENRIK EMILSON