LOOKING FOR GRACE

After a teenage girl named Grace goes missing, her parents along with the help of an investigator seek to find her, while also juggling their own secrets and stories between them. —IMDB

I’m not sure LOOKING FOR GRACE quite knows what genre it is. It’s difficult to categorise — sort of a drama that is slightly quirky and very, very dry with its humour at times. There are some interesting observations on mundane life. Told in a series of stories of characters that eventually converge and reveal what it is going on, it takes a while to understand what is happening. Grace’s story is told first with almost no dialogue. It’s quite slow but beautiful and uneasy. The acting is average except for Odessa Young, who plays grace, and Radha Mitchell (Grace’s mother) who is not as good as Young but does express deep emotions with nuanced facial expressions. The story is quite intriguing although the climactic shock that occurs is a bit cliched now. There’s not a lot of character development. The soundtrack, featuring quite a bit of piano, is gentle and slightly humorous in feel with stunning visuals of Australian landscape. Since seeing the movie, it has grown on me as I have reflected on it. It isn’t great — and most viewers seem to be rating it so low that in my weekly guide I suggested it should be avoided. But if you’re looking for something a bit different, you might enjoy this.