Elizabeth is Missing

Maud’s (Glenda Jackson) best friend Elizabeth (Maggie Steed) has disappeared, but as she tries to solve the mystery, dementia threatens to erase all the clues, giving the search a poignant urgency.

An intriguing premise that made me think a bit about Memento (2000). But ELIZABETH IS MISSING is nowhere near as deep and complex as that movie. ELIZABETH IS MISSING is charming and low key and doesn’t really reach the level of intensity or suspense that it needed to be to be a great movie. Glenda Jackson is brilliant as Maud, but the pace of the story is so slow that there are times I wished that it would just get on with it. It’s definitely not an action movie! There’s a genuine mystery in this story that is tracked through flashbacks that Maud experiences, triggered by events in the present. It’s categorisation as a thriller by some services is really pulling a long bow. It does, however, provoke some thinking about the frustration experienced by those suffering from dementia, the loss of identity, the reduction in agency, the ability to empathise with others, and the bias we may have toward not believing what they might be trying to tell us. It’s worth watching if only to increase our understanding of this horrendous disease.

In Australia, you can watch “Elizabeth Is Missing” streaming on BINGE. In other countries, please check your local streaming services.