Missing Movie Ending Explained | Revealing the Bad Guy

Missing is a clever, modern rendition of a thrilling mystery story. It doubles as a time capsule of the current 2023 technological landscape with synching Apple products, international freelance jobs, and voice command software.

The super underappreciated movie displays the many upsides of technology in a landscape where we’re used to being suspicious of just how powerful technology can be.

Told completely through cameras, and a desktop screen, Missing captures your attention as if you’re living the film itself.

With all of the exciting details leading to the shocking conclusion, this article is going to cover the Missing movie ending and dive into the explanation of how the events unfold.

**Heads Up There WILL be spoilers in this review.**

Missing Movie Ending Explained

Missing is a mystery movie where 18-year old June (Storm Reid) uses all the technology at her disposal to investigate how her mother, Grace (Nia Long), went missing while on vacation with her new boyfriend, Kevin (Ken Leung).

As viewers, we spend the majority of the film, trying to figure out who the bad guy is. The bad guy seems to oscillate between the mom, the boyfriend, and Heather. By the end of the film, we find out that the perpetrator is someone who wasn’t even on our radar. Or at least, wasn’t on mine.

So let’s break down all the clues that made us suspect the other potential suspects and the reality of their role in this mystery.

Kevin the Accomplice

Suspicions for Kevin were incredibly high for the majority of the movie.

We find out that he’s an ex-con man and immediately it seems highly probable that he is trying to take advantage of June’s mom.

But when we learn through a dating app that he’s been completely transparent with June’s mom about his criminal history, he becomes less of a likely suspect.

By the end of the film, we learn that he’s not the kidnapper, but that he strongly assisted in Grace’s kidnapping.

So we know that Kevin was in jail for conning people out of their money but what we didn’t discover until later was that James (June’s supposedly dead father) was in jail for drug possession and domestic abuse at the same time.

So together, they hatched the plan where Kevin would get money for assisting in the kidnapping and James would get his daughter back again.

Kevin’s involvement had nothing to do with hurting June or killing anyone, he just wanted money.

Unfortunately, he was killed before he even had the chance to enjoy his invalid cash.

Grace the Victim

At one point in the movie, we were concerned that maybe Grace herself was the perpetrator because the narrative kept alluding to a secret that she had.

Later, we find out that her secret is that she had to change her identity through witness protection services to shield her from her abusive husband which she sent to jail.

Ultimately, everything that Grace did was to protect herself and June, not because she had anything malicious to hide.

She made a folder of photos and videos that positively represented June’s delinquent father, telling June that her father died of a brain disease rather than that he was in jail for doing detestable things. This was to protect June from the horrible realities of their life.

All of the suspicious things that Grace did were to protect herself and her family.

Heather the Protector

At one point it seemed as though Heather was behaving quite suspiciously as well.

She was withholding a lot of information from June and it seemed as though she may have been on the perpetrator’s side at one point.

It turns out that Heather is the lawyer in charge of Grace’s witness protection with her job being to make sure that her identity stays under wraps and that her family remains safe.

Heather’s involvement in Grace’s protection, got her in trouble with the true murderer causing her to lose her life in the process.

Her intentions were pure the whole time.

James the Perpetrator

One of the best plot twists I’ve seen in a while is the fact that the father that we assumed was dead was actually the reason behind all this chaos.

He was cleverly established as this loving saint who passed too soon from the film’s start that the possibility that he could have anything to do with this chaos was never even considered.

The reality of the situation however is that James never died. Instead, he went to prison for domestic abuse and drug possession.

He started this whole heist with the intent of getting his daughter, June, back.

Rachel Page the Famemonger

Rachel Page, the lady who decided to pretend to be Grace on vacation with Kevin, while Grace was actually held hostage in James’ shed was just a hired body double looking for fame.

She went along with the role thinking that she was part of a low-key reality show and hoping for a big break.

She was most likely going to be paid with a portion of the money that Kevin was going to receive from the heist as well.

Full Circle Mystery Moment

The movie begins with June watching an episode of a true crime show called, Unfiction, oblivious to the fact that her life was about to become one of those episodes.

The story ends with June’s thrilling story being retold with hired actors and scripted scenes on a fresh new episode of Unfiction.

It shows the full circle moment that June has now lived within a story that she usually watches from an outsider’s perspective.

In Conclusion…

Missing is clever, modern, and shocking. It contains one of the most unexpected twists that I’ve seen in a while and incredibly brilliant editing.

It definitely deserves all the accolades.

Rating 9/10

What do you think happened in the Missing (2023) ending? Let me know in the comments below!

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Peace, love, and lots of popcorn,

IMO