Listen, I’ve never been the type of person who’s good at guessing what the twist is gonna be in a movie. On the other hand, I’m not necessarily bad at it either. It’s more that I just don’t care to try. When I watch a movie, I generally just want to watch it, not try to beat it. So, when I do figure out what’s going on before a movie shows its hand, as I did with Sophie Kargman‘s Susie Searches, it means it’s either really obvious, really telegraphed or both. And since Kargman and her co-screenwriter William Day Frank seem to have put all their chips on that twist being compelling, there’s nothing else here that’s really worth the time.
Susie Searches began life as a short made in 2020, which means any accusations that may pop into your head while watching that it was inspired by the Hulu series Only Murders in the Building are unfounded. But the film’s story of a true crime obsessive named Susie (Kiersey Clemons) who gets a chance to put her amateur sleuthing skills to the test when the most popular boy on campus (Alex Wolff) goes missing means that Kargman and Frank are pulling from the same ether as Steve Martin and company.
Much like that series, Susie Searches has a cast that suggests the end result should be more entertaining than it is. In addition to Clemons and Wolff, funny folks like Jim Gaffigan, Ken Marino, Rachel Sennott and Dolly Wells dot the landscape.
And there’s good taste at work on the soundtrack too. The Elfmanesque score is by Jon Natchez (Michael Angelo Covino‘s The Climb, Andrew Bujalski‘s There There). And the songs include “Washing Machine Heart” by Mitski. Meanwhile, a character at one point intones, “It’s a shame what happened to Ray,” which feels too close to the name of the Lemonheads album to be a coincidence. Someone involved has to be a big Evan Dando fan.
Music can lend a movie character but, still, that’s exactly what Susie Searches is missing. Despite the great cast, the characters are too thinly drawn to be captivating. That starts at the top with Susie herself. She’s a cartoonish version of an cutesy, awkward misfit and the lines are all too smooth to cram in anything difficult or interesting about her.
Broad characters are not uncommon in genre stories. But add that missing element to the easily foreseeable plot twist and you’ve got a mystery with no mystery.
