Still Missing

When we think of them at all, we think of them as the milk carton kids, those hauntingly innocent faces of the young children who go missing every year. It's not a question of callousness; no parent likes to dwell on his or her worst nightmare: the fact that strangers abduct, abuse and murder children. Narrated by actor/author Peter Coyote, filmmaker Theresa Tollini's latest plunges watching parents directly into hell during the opening ten minutes as it profiles the experiences of four families whose children disappeared. Patty Wetterling, whose son Jacob was abducted at gunpoint, recalls how her life changed overnight ("...the appearance of normalcy [in others] is almost surrealistic.") Linda Bender struggles to relinquish her anger over the two brothers--lifelong sex offenders--who abused and killed her daughter (one of the brothers will be eligible for parole in seven years). Joey Jackson's son suffers guilt for leaving his sister unattended for just a moment while grabbing a quick drink of water. David Collins, while still maintaining hope, finally, for his family's sake held a memorial for his son Kevin, missing for several years and presumed dead. As bleak as all this sounds--and, make no mistake, Still Missing is not enjoyable viewing--the film is not a Hard Copy roughshod treatment of a highly emotional issue. On the contrary, it's an informative, compassionate, and--ultimately--activist approach. Witness the ongoing efforts of David Collins and Patty Wetterling; in fact, we have Wetterling to thank for the law that now requires communities to be notified when a sex offender is moving into the neighborhood. As she did in her award-winning film on incest, Breaking Silence, Tollini takes an uncompromising look at an uncomfortable topic many of us would just as soon not think about--and proves, once again, that silence and avoidance are not the solutions. Highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)