The Missing Person (2009)

Writer/Director Noah Buschel
95 mins.

Hard-drinking detective John Rosow (Michael Shannon) is understandably suspicious when a proxy, Ms. Charley (Amy Ryan), arrives with a client willing to pay him hundreds of dollars a day to tail Harold Fullmer (Frank Wood) across the country.

Rosow is good at his work, but unbalanced and unsuited to the rules and technologies of the modern world. We slowly learn, however, that his mind isn't stuck in the 1940s of Bogart and Hammett, but September 10, 2001 - his wife perished in 9/11, leaving him an emotional wreck. Fullmer, it turns out, was also presumed dead in the attacks, but used the opportunity to vanish and start a new life moving exploited children to a Mexican sanctuary. Does Fullmer have a right to his own life, or should Rosow retain his loyalty to the client and bring him home?

Written and directed by relative newcomer Noah Buschel, The Missing Person is a slow-burning take on the film noir, setting aside the artificial role-playing of a movie like Brick for something deeper and more satisfying.

Above and below: Michael Shannon and Amy Ryan have two of the most interesting faces in modern film. They share a common expression of simultaneous curiosity, humour, and contempt. If the film has a significant error, it's in keeping these two perfectly matched actors apart for most of the plot.

Above and below: two brief allusions to 9/11. The first comes after we learn of the date's significance to the plot, as Rosow and Fullmer's plane drifts into a cloud and vanishes, instead of merely exiting beyond the frame. Subtle and haunting. The second (a cartoon on television) is seen much earlier in the film, and appears out of place until we re-watch from the beginning. More blunt, perhaps, but curious.

On a plane back to society, we get a glimpse of the man Rosow might have been - charming, but not overly so, a father to a child never born.

Buschel places the noir hero in the modern world, and has some fun at his expense. Rosow is perplexed, at one point, to find a cop on a Segway, and in the image above, struggles with a new camera phone forced upon him by the client.

No interrogation lamps, but plenty of bright lights to bring secrets out into the open. Is Rosow having a moment of genius, or burning under the heat?

Another blink-and-miss allusion, as two columns of light stand in place of the buildings that once stood, but don't stand anymore.

Rosow and Charley in a final moment of harmony. Two buildings in unison were brought down together, seperating countless couples and families between the living and the missing. But we'll always try to put two back together.