A Missing Part Review (SXSW London 2025)

A Missing Part plays as part of this year’s inaugural SXSW London…

There is no concept of shared custody in Japan. If parents separate or divorce, one party can entirely remove the other from their child’s life without warning or consequence. Some call it parental abduction. Often, the child in question is told that their absent parent has abandoned them.

Guillaume Senez’s A Missing Part offers an insight into how this policy plays out, dropping us into the life of Jay (Romain Duris), a French taxi driver in Tokyo. Jay has not seen his daughter Lily (Mei Cirne-Masuki) for the past nine years, after a tumultuous relationship ended with a painful separation from her mother Keiko (Yumi Narita). When a chance encounter sees him reconnect with Lily, he struggles to stay within the bounds of the law in his attempts not to lose her again.

Michiko (Tsuyu Shimizu), who runs a group for those dealing with this situation, explains that the government says it doesn’t like to get involved in family affairs. Allowing the police to forcibly keep estranged parents from their children, however, is clearly a deeply involved process. Early on, Jay is called to help a woman from his group, Jessica (Judith Chemla), who is trying to give a birthday present to her son – a Barbarpapa stuffed toy. We first see her as she’s dragged away by police, screaming, from her ex-husband’s home. Through the group, we see the different ways that this policy impacts parents, all of whom are at various stages of loss. Jessica is trapped in a rage state, desperately fighting back against an imive system to see her child. At least one of the has attempted suicide.

On Jay’s part, he is resigned yet eternally hopeful that he will see Lily again. His house is haunted by the memory of his daughter, the place turned into something of a living shrine. Her room has been left intact since she disappeared from his life, toys left strewn around, and a tiny bed made ready for her return. Elsewhere in the house, small colourful handprints decorate the staircase. Jay’s grief is inescapable, his hope that Lily will return to him inextinguishable despite all the odds being against him.

When he does find her, his desperation to connect is painful. As he attempts to draw on shared memories, all she can recall is her parents’ arguments. His perception of her as an eternal infant is shattered, and the fact that she is essentially a total stranger to him gradually becomes more apparent.

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Some points of A Missing Part are uncomfortable to watch. Before Jay is certain that Lily is his child, he begins to follow the twelve-year-old in her day-to-day life, manipulating his rota for an excuse to see her. As we learn that Lily is his daughter, this is a demonstration of a strong paternal bond and the lengths a parent will go to for their child. Yet conversations with Jay’s father suggest that he has ‘found’ his daughter before – is this a repeated routine? Has he become fixated on other children in this way? The implication here is unsettling. While we are watching a ‘success’ story, how many times has this voyeurism continued without real justification? That said, when he and Lily do get to know each other on truthful if uncertain , their relationship is charming. Cirne-Masuki’s hesitant vulnerability and Duris’ almost overflowing emotions play off of each other as they try to find solid ground.

Frustratingly, the film doesn’t get into the nitty-gritty of the legalities. Although this avoids a slide into dense legalese and long expositions, it would be useful to have a little more context on this lesser-known quirk of the Japanese system in order to better understand its ramifications. Similarly vague are the details of Jay and Keiko’s relationship. We are given breadcrumbs about why they had such a difficult breakup, hints of the other side of the story alluded to without being firmly outlined. This keeps us sympathetic to Jay – we only hear a whisper of his culpability – but it also keeps the characters at arm’s length.

Regardless, strong performances and an insight into an aspect of international custodial law that many will be unfamiliar with make A Missing Part a compelling watch. This is a film that will lead you down a legal research rabbit hole.