Adapted from the book The Execution of Charles Horman: An American Sacrifice (aka Missing) by Thomas Hauser
In the aftermath of the Chilean military coup of 1973, American Charles Horman disappears. Several neighbors claim to have seen him arrested by soldiers. His wife and friend enlist the help of people at the American Embassy and Consulate, who are remarkably, even suspiciously, unhelpful. After weeks of little progress, Charles's father travels to Chile to aid in the search. Before long, Ed Horman begins to share his daughter-in-law's growing suspicions that the American government had a lot to do not only with the coup, but also with Charles's disappearance.
I'm glad I read the book before seeing the movie, because I'm not sure I would have fully understood all the implications of the story by just watching it. The book gives a lot of historical background of the events leading up to the coup, whereas the movie focuses mostly on Charles Horman's story. I understand why they made the movie this way, as I think it would have been difficult to show a lot of the other information presented in the book, but as someone extremely unfamiliar with Chilean history or politics, I found the additional context quite helpful. Overall, though, I thought the film did a pretty good job of conveying the political and social turmoil without going into all the specifics. It presents a few examples of the kinds of things that were going on through the eyes of the main characters, rather than deviating from their story as the book does, which I think worked well.
The change that kind of annoyed me, although I can still see why they did it, was the added conflict between Charles's wife and father. His wife is completely different, even down to her name (it was Joyce in the book and Beth in the film). She's significantly more blunt and sassy in the movie. In both versions, she's upset and determined to find her husband, but in the book she's not quite as angry and anti-establishment as she's portrayed onscreen. Charles's father is named Ed in both versions, but he's a lot meaner to Charles's wife in the movie. The book mentions that Charles and Ed didn't always get along or agree, but their relationship was in a pretty good place when Charles disappeared. In the book, Ed makes it clear that he didn't think much of his son's life choices, and is very rude to Beth about it. I don't remember book Ed ever being deliberately mean to Joyce, but film Ed makes it clear to Beth that he thinks she and Charles brought this on themselves, at least initially. He repeatedly calls her out for being "paranoid" when she expresses suspicion of the Ambassador and Consul, which is something else I don't remember from the book. Of course, I get why the screenwriters added this, since the tension between Beth and Ed makes for a more interesting, dramatic story, and their eventual reconciliation offsets some of the tragedy of what they eventually learn. I was just kind of annoyed because it seems a little insulting to imply that Charles's loved ones spent more time fighting with each other than trying to find him. I noticed that the film also changed the names of most of the American officials they encountered in Chile, which I assumed was because they're portrayed in a fairly uncomplimentary light. I thought maybe Charles's wife's name was changed to protect her privacy, but it could also be partly because they changed her character so much, and not for the better, that they wanted to emphasize that it wasn't really her.
We may never know the full story of what happened to Charles Horman. Most of the evidence remains classified for "national security reasons". This, along with everything his father and wife went through to find out where he was, seems to support the tragic theory that his execution was ordered, or at least approved, by the American government because he "knew too much" about America's involvement in the Chilean coup. The one consolation is that this story is allowed to be told. I don't think enough people have heard this story, but the fact that in the U.S. people are allowed to publish books and make movies accusing their own government of war crimes is, in my opinion, one of the best things about this country. If only we would stop supporting and even bringing about governments in other countries who arrest, torture, and kill people for owning the "wrong" books (which is what happened in Chile), that would be great.
Up next: Terms of Endearment, which will be the 25th film on both this and my Best Picture blog, the 10th to win both Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actress, and the 5th to make it on all three of my Oscar blogs.
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