Spotlight on Christian Science in Hollywood: “Missing”

The 1982 film Missing shares the true story of the disappearance of Charles Horman in Chile. Horman was a freelance journalist, whose writing credits include The Christian Science Monitor, and who was raised in Christian Science. The film stars Jack Lemmon—who gives a brilliant dramatic performance, far from the comedic roles for which he is better known—as Charles’s father, Ed, and Sissy Spacek as Charles’s wife, Joyce. Nominated for five Academy Awards, Missing won Best Adapted Screenplay, and the Palme d’Or (best film) at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival.

In September 1973, the democratically-elected government of Chile was overthrown in a coup d’etat. For Ed, a Christian Scientist, and his family, this event changed their lives forever. Missing explores Ed’s search for truth, both in looking for his son and in who is ultimately responsible for the coup.

Ed Horman was a businessman who lived with his wife, Elizabeth, in New York City. After the coup in Chile, opponents to the new regime were being tortured and killed. Upon receiving word of his son’s disappearance, Ed flew to Chile. Together with Joyce, Ed spoke with Charles’s friends and members of the United States Embassy hoping to uncover more information. Ed and Joyce went to hospitals and the soccer stadium where hundreds of political prisoners were being held. This political thriller follows Ed and Joyce as they start to discover the truth behind Charles’s disappearance.

Throughout the film, there are several references to Christian Science. Ed Horman worked with director Costa-Gavras to ensure the accuracy of the film’s references to Christian Science. Ed approved of the movie so much that he traveled the world in support of it, including appearing at Cannes. (A TV segment from Cannes on the bonus DVD of the Criterion Collection edition of the film, includes an interview with Ed and Joyce Horman, Costa-Gavras, Jack Lemmon, and Horman family friend, Terry Simon.)

The primary mention of Christian Science is a scene in which Horman reads in a Christian Science Reading Room. (Missing was filmed in Mexico City, and the Reading Room in which Lemmon is shown is that of First Church of Christ, Scientist, Mexico City.) After an embassy official comes to pick up Ed at the Reading Room to search for his son, the official asks, “What’s Christian Science about?” Ed replies, “Faith. It’s about Faith.” The official then asks, “Faith in what?” Ed, alluding to the larger struggle occurring in the film, replies, “In Truth.”

In the years following the experience with his son’s disappearance, Ed Horman became a Christian Science practitioner, and although he wrote no articles for the Christian Science Sentinel or The Christian Science Journal, a testimony of healing written by both him and his wife appeared in the Sentinel.¹ In it, Elizabeth shares a healing Charles had when a child.

Ed passed away in 1993, and in his obituary, the New York Times noted, “Turning the anguish of losing his son into a crusade on human-rights issues, Mr. Horman testified at hearings and spoke to conferences in the United States and abroad. ‘I’m not interested in revenge,’ he said. ‘What can revenge do? I don’t want this to happen to any American citizens again.’” Perhaps best summarizing Ed’s life in a 1982 interview in the Daily Express, Jack Lemmon commented that in the midst of Horman’s trials, “Ed…has been carried along by the strength he gets from his Christian Scientist faith.”