She’s Missing is an atmospheric, woman-led story of disillusionment, intrigue, and female relationships. After its Edinburgh Film Festival premiere, we got the chance to speak with writer-director Alexandra McGuinness about this dream-like drama, starring Lucy Fry and Eiza Gonzalez.
Could you speak about the inspiration behind this story?
I got involved in She’s Missing about five years ago, in 2013. I’m from Ireland and had moved to California, and I was spending a lot of the time driving around the Californian desert. And I was visiting this town that had a lot of missing posters pinned up and there was one in particular that caught my attention, and I started doing research on it. It was a woman who had gone missing 12 years ago and her mother was still looking for her, but the police hadn’t really been involved in the investigation. It was all done in Facebook groups.
That was the seed of the story, and I knew that I wanted to write a film about this type of friendship between two girls that are kinda co-dependent, kind of obsessive, with a power-struggle element to it. And I think these are some elements that lots of girls’ friendships have in their teens and early 20s, and I wanted that to be at the centre of the story. There was a previous version that we started shooting in 2013, but that fell apart when the budget got cut. It came together again in 2017 with this new cast and a bunch of producers.
Who had originally signed on?
Bonnie Wright was the original Heidi [now played by Fry]; And she’s a wonderful actress and did a great job during the few days we filmed, but she was happy to move away from the project, because she’s mostly directing things now.
Whereas Jane’s dreams and motivations are quite clear, Heidi’s are not always as transparent. What drives her?
I feel like what Heidi wants is, or the thing that’s most important to her, is Jane and their friendship. So when Jane goes missing, it spurs her to action because she wants to maintain their friendship, and the story evolves from there. When she can’t put that friendship back together the way she wants it to be, she has to change what she wants.
And I do feel that she’s mistreated by Jane in a way, but she’s hooked on being treated that way, because Jane’s the most exciting thing in this town that they live in, and she wants to be part of her… There’s definitely that idea that Heidi is in love with Jane in some way, and whether she’s in love with her because she wants to be her, or she does want a relationship with her that’s more romantic and sexual… I think it can be looked at in both ways.
It feels like the Californian desert acts as one of the main characters, informing others’ behaviours and heavily lending to the atmosphere. Was this an active choice?
I think that being from the Irish countryside and spending time in America, that desert landscape was very eerie to me at the time. I was fascinated by it, and my Director of Photography is also English, and she also had this feeling of being on another planet; So that informed the way it’s shot and the way it’s used as a kind of character, a place that can’t really be learnt or can’t really be deciphered… I think it’s not set in a totally real, normal version of the world, and the landscape added to that as well.
The artifice of the rodeo show and of Jane’s dream of being a rodeo queen, act as a very jarring element to the desert setting. What was the thinking behind this?
Around the time when I first moved over here, I was working in Texas and I went to a few rodeos, and I had never seen that world before, nor did I know what a rodeo queen was. So when I saw that competition, it was something I was really interested in, both visually and just the idea of it. There are these speeches that they have to make and they follow formulas – they’re about the flag, and they’re about America, and they’re judged on their patriotism as well as their horsemanship, their outfits and elegance.
I think it was the idea of her planning the speech, and getting halfway through only to realise that she doesn’t believe what she’s saying, and that America isn’t working for her. She has the American flag behind her… I mean, Jane wasn’t written as a Latina but when we cast Eiza, it added this new dimension to it, and with everything going on with America – I mean the film was written before Trump was elected, but that added this real element to the story, as did the fact that we filmed in a border state. I think there’s something very striking about Eiza making the speech and then abandoning it, something which rings very true… I think that she decides the crown isn’t for her, that it’s not a competition she wants to be a part of. And she’s already taking this drug in the film, and she has this artificial power from that which gives her perspective.
There’s a dichotomy in the film between artificial power and true power. It feels as though the only person with true power is Heidi, when she decides to leave Eiza and her world behind.
I think that’s correct. I liked the idea, when we were coming up with how the drug was going to affect its users, that it makes you feel like you’re in control and that you know what’s going to happen – and it makes you feel powerful. The story is about these women who are in these jobs where they don’t have agency or power, or really have control any part of their lives, and that they’re being cheated by people on a daily basis, and by men.
So there’s this drug being offered by Josh Hartnett’s character that it can make you feel powerful when you don’t have that power in everyday life. And I suppose that Heidi realises that it’s an artificial power, and that they are just regular drug addicts.
There’s a strong feminist dialogue to many of the conversations between Heidi and Jane, which becomes particularly sharp in the age of Trump.
That was all wrapped up with where we were shooting, and being in the midst of a Trump presidency – that wasn’t directly in the film, but I think the influence of the presidency, the chaos and racism and misogyny, it’s all very present in the background. And the way they talk about being mistreated and disrespected is amped up by that rhetoric.
And what future projects of yours can we look forward to?
My next film is about James Joyce’s daughter who was a professional dancer, her name was Lucia Joyce. It’s set in the 20s and 30s in Ireland and Paris, and she spent a lot of time in psychiatric institutions, probably more time than she needed to. And it’s about her trying to create the greatest dance in the world whilst still being imprisoned in this institution. And the film questions whether, if you make this great art and no-one sees it, does it matter?
Check out our review here.
She’s Missing is released on iTunes and On Demand from 1st July on Sky Store, Virgin Media, Google Play, Youtube and Amazon.