Official Trailer:

Lost Girls follows Mari Gilbert (excellent performance by Amy Ryan), a mother of 3 daughters, who works multiple jobs to take care of two younger daughters who live with her. Her elder daughter, Shannan, goes missing one night. Mari realizes something bad may have happened to Shannan when calls to her go to voicemail. There was a 911 call from Shannan on that night from a gated community but the authorities didn’t show up for more than an hour. Mari files a missing complaint to the police, but it is not taken seriously because Shannan was a prostitute. A search near the area where Shannan was last seen leads to a body in a sack but it wasn’t Shannan. Search leads to more bodies which points to possible serial killer(s) who kill sex workers and dump them. Movie follows Mari’s desperate struggle to force the law enforcement to take the investigation seriously and gathering support from mothers and sisters of similar missing victims.

We have got many movies with violence against women / rape and murder trope but most to all of them are police procedural and narrated from male protagonist view. There are exceptions like Unbelievable, a multi-episode Netflix series, where the narration alternated between women investigators and victims’ point of view. What sets apart Lost Girls is it is narrated from mother’s angle. The nightmare she goes through and her fight to keep the investigation alive. Mari Gilbert is one of the well etched character I have seen in recent movies. Mari, a single parent working multiple jobs just to get by, accepting money from Shannan, knowing well she is into prostitution, to take care of her younger daughters. Yes, not a role model mother. She has to fight against social stigmas on her to force the law enforcement to continue the investigation. Amy Ryan nails the character and her strong performance keeps us engaged.

Lost Girls isn’t a perfect film, it does use clichés. Other than Mari rest of the characters are not developed well including Shannan and the investigators. More details about them would have helped.Not all threads worked. I guess mini-series format would have helped.

With all its shortcomings, the key message does hit you hard – a crime should be a crime irrespective of victim’s profession or victim’s shortcomings, but it isn’t the case in reality. Crime investigation and crime punishment varies depending on the victim and the accused. We shouldn’t be hearing responses like Why waste your time on the murder of a prostitute? What were you doing out late in the night? She deserved it by dressing like that. Women get blamed for men’s behavior.

Investigation leads to ten bodies including Shannan’s but there is no closure to the case. We don’t know Why the murders happened. Or who did it? We may never find out.