Missing at 17 (2013) Ayla Kell, Tricia O'Kelley, Ben Gavin, Alex Carter, Micah Alberti, Marin Hinkle, Gary Hudson Movie Review

Missing at 17 (2013)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Ben Gavin and Ayla Kell in Missing at 17 (2013)

Missing Realism and More

During a science lesson 17 year-old Candace (Ayla Kell - Snowed in at Rosemont) argues with the teacher over the genetic possibilities of eye colouring which leads to her questioning her mum Shannon (Tricia O'Kelley) and discovering that she is in fact adopted. Enraged by this sudden revelation, Candace runs away from home to try and track down her biological mother, Callie (Marin Hinkle - Fielder's Choice), and ends up meeting Toby (Ben Gavin - The Good Nanny) who offers to help her. When Candace tracks down her real mum only to discover she is not as welcome as she hoped she ends up becoming more involved with Toby who has an unsavoury lifestyle. Meanwhile having not heard from her missing 17 year old daughter, Shannon manages to track down Callie and persuades her to help her find her.

Let me lead you through my experience of the made for TV movie "Missing at 17". Unrealistic scene of Candace throwing a hissy fit in class when she disagrees with her teacher over the genetic possibilities of eye colour. Another hissy fit when she goes home to find out that she was adopted and so strops off, hooking up with an older stranger called Toby, not only climbing in to his car but going back to his room. Meanwhile mum acting frantic to find her whilst arguing with her ex-husband who seems to want to use this to score points. And by this point "Missing at 17" had started to lose me as it really didn't have much story especially as it gets side tracked with the issues between Shannon and her ex husband.

Tricia O'Kelley in Missing at 17 (2013)

Now whilst "Missing at 17" is partly about Shannon trying to find Candace what we also have is Toby who shares a home with his dodgy cousin who we see filing off the numbers on a bike. So is Toby a good guy who falls for Candace or is he a bad guy? And what will happen to Candace as hanging in this crowd sure means trouble. The thing is that none of this is either convincing or really entertaining as it ends up both gappy and unrealistic. Not only that it throws in some vision scenes as Shannon has nightmares involving Candace which end up coming across as far fetched.

The up shot of all this is that "Missing at 17" becomes a movie heavily about the look rather than the story with it being another movie featuring a nice looking cast. From Ayla Kell through to Ben Gavin there isn't an ugly person in "Missing at 17". Even the character of Callie, played by Marin Hinkle, is not ugly despite being a woman with a lot of issues who in her first scene appears to have taken an over dose or just got very drunk.

What this all boils down to is that "Missing at 17" didn't do it for me and lacked plot consistency to draw me in. It means that this ends up another made for TV movie which relies more on the appeal of the cast and the look than the story.


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