29.
Megan Is Missing (Netflix Instant)
This, like
The Girl Next Door, was another movie that was not originally on my list. But I added
Megan Is Missing to my viewing list this year because it was going to fall from Netflix Instant's catalog on November 1, and I've seen enough movies disappear altogether from Netflix Instant's catalog that this seemed urgent. Part of me wishes that I had left
Megan Is Missing alone, allowed it to pass from my life unwatched so I wouldn't be stained by its last 22 harrowing minutes.
Megan Is Missing is another found footage film, and it has some of the same technological problems that plague other found footage films.
1) Why was the footage recorded? The footage from a party early in the film makes sense since teens would record what happened at a party like that. The footage supposedly recorded by one of the protagonist's portable camera makes sense since she's making video diaries. The security camera footage, news footage and still photos that are spliced into the film make sense because it's positioned as a documentary on the protagonists' last days and disappearances. The footage from cellphone cameras and Web cameras don't make as much sense; why would anyone capture these everyday conversations unless they knew that they were going to make a movie out of them?
2) How did we get this footage? If we accept that the kids recorded their cellphone camera and Web camera conversations, we can infer that the filmmaker compiled the footage from their phones and hard drives.
3) Why are we being shown this footage? Ostensibly, this is a documentary about the protagonists' last days and disappearances. We are told by text on screen at the beginning of the film that the footage is real.
At first,
Megan Is Missing felt like a slightly more extreme version of a Lifetime movie about Internet anonymity and stranger danger. The first two-thirds of the film felt like a warmed over version of Kids without the sense of exploitation that colored Kids. We see adolescents engaging in outrageous behavior and outrageously frank talk about their sex lives, but we need this time to establish who Amy and Megan are and their intimate friendship. They're teenage girls bound together by their low self esteems. Megan has a strong superficial image, but she plays the sexual party girl because she feels like she has nothing else to her identity. She relays her history of sexual abuse to Amy frankly and almost nonchalantly; it seems like she understands how traumatic her abuse at her stepfather's hands was, but it also doesn't seem like she realized that she was also raped by the camp counselor, since both she and Amy react to the anecdote like it's some kind of romantic tale. Amy is bullied, and her only social tether is Megan. Megan is attached to Amy because Amy's friendship feels like the only real affection she has in her life.
Megan disappears, and there's a moment where the film feels like it's pointing out its own hypocrisy. The film starts by telling viewers that it is based on a true story. Then, the film has a segment that mocks a fictional recreation of the security camera footage of Megan's disappearance. The editing of this fictional recreation is absurd. It's gallows humor, but it's self-reflective; wouldn't the person whose life has been theoretically adapted for Megan Is Missing also point out how false the representation on film is?
The plot also requires a leap of faith at a critical junction. After Amy informs the police of Megan's Web camera friend, who was the last person to speak to Megan, why would she be allowed to continue to roam around unmonitored by the police or her parents, especially after this person threatened Amy over the Web? Amy, who had otherwise been fairly smart, displayed a moment of monumental stupidity, which disrupts the suspension of disbelief.
The last 22 minutes of
Megan Is Missing is possibly one of the most harrowing film watching experiences I've had in years. I was shocked by the pair of still photographs that hinted at Megan's fate slightly before the last 22 minutes, but those 22 minutes wrecked me. This segment matches the intensity and ugliness of
The Girl Next Door; what I saw now haunts my brain with what I remember from Lucky McKee's
Woman and
The Girl Next Door. It combines one of the signature moments of
The Vanishing with the brutality of
I Spit on Your Grave. But I wouldn't categorize it as torture porn; there's no glamour or titillation from this. The violence that occurs is off-screen; we see its devastating effects. Because it's footage recorded by Amy's camera placed on floors and tables, it's unflinching footage of Amy's doom.
I can't recommend
Megan Is Missing to anyone for the same reasons I can't recommend movies like
Woman,
The Girl Next Door, or
I Spit on Your Grave. You'll know if you are equipped to watch such a film.
