Une étrange disparition

I am writing this about a half-hour in-I don't see it getting better than 7. Performances are good and it is 'based on a true story'- so, some of the weird choices are hard to dispute. The plot involves a youngish boy heading from Ottawa to a small college in Colorado, in an iffy van, and alone. No cell phones in those days. Hence, if your vehicle breaks down in the boonies, you are royally stuck, esp. if you are on a deadline.

It is interesting to see his family back home after his departure: brother is typing on a manual typewriter, while another listens to a Walkman. Wall phones and phone booths are used to communicate. Assuming this story is based on a real incident, I gotta ask: why not take a Greyhound or a plane trip down? Buy or rent a cheap vehicle upon arrival. The lonely, isolated mid-west is no place to travel alone with a suspect vehicle. Offsetting this is the fact that the boy's dad (split from mom), green card apparently, lives/works in an adjacent state. The expedition still seems very suspect to me, but I expect a suspenseful story with a non-happy ending.

So he's driving from Ottawa to some place in Nebraska. Why would he go through Vancouver (Lion's Gate Bridge)?

True story about a missing young man is less a criminal drama or crime-mystery than it is an indictment of the justice system, the entanglements of legal procedures, jurisdictional red tape and the incompetence of government officials. Ellen Burstyn shows true grit as the mother of the college student who vanished, last heard from in Nebraska after his van broke down while driving from Ottawa, Canada to Boulder, Colorado to attend classes. TV-movie has the kid's determined mother, his older brother, his father from Los Angeles and an elderly private investigator running into one roadblock after another while tracking the path of the boy's stolen van, receipts from his credit card and his cashed traveler's checks. Although the film was nominated for an Eddie for Eric A. Sears' editing, its muddled midsection really could have used some paring down (instead of getting answers, such as how one nasty felon with a list of priors managed to pass a lie detector test, we are treated to incidentals at Burstyn's job and the detective's marriage). Also, the opening, showing the high energy relationship between the kid in question and his family, rings false (it's too blatantly perky--I'm guessing to provide a contrast to the bleak circumstances that follow). Frustrated Burstyn gets a chance to blow off some steam, and she's terrific when she takes on indifferent authority figures, however the reenactment at the finale of the boy's fate is extremely hard to watch. A purposefully depressing experience overall, but nevertheless an engrossing story.

This is one of Ellen Burstyn's best performances. She is the mother of a young Canadian man who disappears while driving across the US. She hires a private detective to find out what happened because of the inaction of Canadian and American authorities. I won't say anything about the story, because it is a mystery. It is based on a true story. The final five minutes cap the story perfectly. Worth watching. I've seen it twice.

Well acted, good script. A crime story well worth watching. The true story it depicts is as gripping as most works of fiction. 7.5 stars.