'The Missing Part' deals with melodrama without becoming one
At its best, 'The Missing Part' dwells on the hero's attempt to create a renewed emotional connection with a girl who last saw him when she was 3. These are the few moments where it manages to touch, but it is simply unmemorable.
A French man drives a taxi in Tokyo. In the very first scene, we understand that he has completely integrated into the landscape, speaks Japanese, and even provides directions to a driver who got lost in the city. Very quickly, we realize this is not just his job, but a way to complete his life's mission: nine years ago, he separated from his local wife and lost all contact with his daughter, Lily. Since then, he has been searching for her, and just as he decides to give up and return home, a girl who looks vaguely familiar gets into his taxi.
'The Missing Part', a film by Guillaume Senez, deals with a reality that exists in Japan: the country does not favor joint custody and grants the parent who retains custody almost complete control over the child's life. As a result of this policy, people—especially foreigners—find themselves in the position of the film's hero, Jay: parental alienation under the auspices of the state. Accordingly, 'The Missing Part' does not settle for Jay's (Romain Duris) private case, but introduces him to a French woman named Jessica (Judith Chemla), whose son was taken from her by his Japanese father. A friendship develops between the two against the backdrop of a shared fate.
Senez works with the materials of a melodrama, but he does not turn the film into one. If I were to summarize the style of 'The Missing Part' with one adjective, there is none more accurate than 'restrained'. I recall a review I read ages ago for Lawrence Kasdan's 1988 'The Accidental Tourist', where the critic praised Kasdan for the fact that 'nothing explodes.' With Senez, too, nothing explodes, but I do not write this necessarily as praise. 'The Missing Part' is a film that has nothing provocative in it; it captures a complex snapshot of a person rather than telling a story, but all this emotional and narrative restraint makes it, in many ways, emotionally crippled.
At its best, the film dwells on the hero's almost hopeless attempt to create a renewed emotional connection with a girl who last saw him when she was three. Here, the circumstances are secondary, and these are the few moments where the film manages to touch. However, between the preoccupation with Japanese reality and the relationship with Jessica—which provides nothing but narrative dispersion—my viewing experience remained distant, bordering on indifference.
A year ago, 'Rental Family' was released, which is literally a brother-film to 'The Missing Part'. In it, the hero (Brendan Fraser) is also an American who settled in Japan, and the narrative heart also touches on the relationship between a foreign man and a local girl, whom he pretends to be the missing father of. The inspiration for 'Rental Family' also came from a reality existing in Japan: companies that employ actors to help people cope with death and abandonment. I mention this film not only because of the similarity, but because of how they differ: 'Rental Family' is a film that dares to move, where things do explode, and where there is quite a bit of Hollywood sensibility alongside the drama (the director, Mitsuyo Miyazaki, known as Hikari, is Japanese-American). Honestly, that is exactly what its restrained brother-film is missing.
'The Missing Part' is watchable. It is not a bad film; it deserves credit for its humanity and atmosphere, but it is simply unmemorable. If you want a truly emotional experience regarding the fatherhood of an American man in Japan, 'Rental Family' is available on Disney+.
