SHE'S MISSING review

Out now after a recent appearance at the Edinburgh Film Festival is Alexandra McGuinness's thriller about Heidi, a young woman going in search of Jane, her Rodeo Queen friend who has mysteriously gone missing.

A story about a strong bond between two women, what drives the story is the differences in the relationship between the two friends. On the one hand there's the rebellious and unpredictable Jane, and on the other the safe, normal Heidi. In many ways they are mismatched friends, leading very difference lifestyles and destined to go down differing paths eventually. Jane (Eiza Gonzalez) wants to be Rodeo Queen and find a better life for herself, whereas Heidi (Lucy Fry) is apparently content to wait tables and date local cowboys. It's only when Jane disappears that Heidi begins to realise how empty her life is without her.

It's a gorgeous looking film, bleached by the sun like an old missing persons poster, but the story moves at the speed of a tumbleweed in a not particularly high wind, and also suffers by removing its most intriguing and instantly watchable characters for a large portion of the film. Eiza Gonzalez is a star on the rise after appearing in last year's Baby Driver and is set to appear in the Fast and Furious spin off Hobbs and Shaw later on in the summer, and despite her character Jane's disappearance from this story her star power is palpable, making you wish she... well, that she wasn't missing.

There's the exploration of a much meatier storyline involving Josh Hartnett as a manipulating cult leader type figure, but he arrives too late into the film to carry enough impact on the overall experience you'll have with it. Heidi does begin to expand her horizons with some ayahuasca taking desert rats and goes on a journey of self discovery and reflection, but even then she still suffers from being the less interesting character out of the initial pairing.

She's Missing doesn't quite deliver on its sex, drugs and rodeos promise and the mystery aspect is never as compelling as you'd hope, but the cast put in fine performances in what is a beautiful looking but uncompelling drama.

Verdict
2.5/5