(The 2026 Maryland Film Festival ran April 8–12 at the SNF Parkway Theatre and venues across Baltimore. Check out Chris Reed’s Misper movie review, from the fest. Seen it? Join the conversation with HtN on our Letterboxd Page.)
Misper—the title is short for “missing person”—may be director Harry Sherriff’s feature debut, but it feels like the work of a very confident filmmaker. Mixing comedy and tragedy with gusto, Sherriff crafts a unique tale of lost opportunities and unrealized passions. Set in a once-elegant, now-deteriorating seaside hotel on the south shore of England, the movie is, above all, a showcase of impressive acting talent. If the script occasionally stumbles, the actors never do.
Leonard (a very good Samuel Blenkin) works at The Grand, the aforementioned inn that is a shadow of its former self. “On a clear day, you can see Paris,” says Gary (Daniel Ryan, channeling Ricky Gervais), the obnoxious manager. Not really. But one can dream.
When not sitting behind the front desk in the mostly deserted entrance, Leonard stares longingly at Elle (Emily Carey), a fresh-faced young woman of approximately his own age, with whom he can never quite get a real conversation started. It seems she might welcome such an overture, but that would take gumption, which he lacks. The Grand may actually be the perfect place for Leonard, given the frequency at which he operates, though he looks like he wants so much more.
And then, just like that, Elle is gone, following the one quasi-meaningful conversation she has with Leonard. The rest of the crew—Pam (Christine Bottomley), Viv (Rosalind Adler), and Khalid (Sunil Patel)—feel bad, but Leonard is devastated. The police think it’s an abduction. Or worse. The prognosis is not promising.
Sherriff and his co-writer Laurence Tratalos have taken on quite the balancing act here. There’s a serious tragedy at the center of the plot, and the gloom this adds to the location’s visual decay is not the stuff of raucous comedy, no matter how dry Gary’s deliver may be. This is a sad, sad story. And yet there are jokes.
The fact that so many of them succeed is a tribute to the filmmakers’ wit and unique, offbeat sensibility. Life does not always go the way we expect it to, and it’s OK to laugh in the middle of the worst thing that could happen. At least sometimes.
The production design helps sell the absurdity of the situation, as do the performances. A missing person makes everyone in a community sit up and take notice, even if only for a short while. Leonard could, if wanted, take his changed circumstances and become someone new. Whether he will or not is the true mystery of this existential dramedy masquerading as a whodunnit and watching him struggle is the joy—such as it is—of this uneven, but wholly engaging, effort.
– Christopher Llewellyn Reed (@ChrisReedFilm)
