Lost Girls (2020) review

Single Mom Mari (Amy Ryan) - who works two jobs and has two daughters that live with her (Thomasin McKenzie and Oona Laurence) - finds out her oldest daughter (who worked as a prostitute) has disappeared, so she turns into something of a private detective since the police in Long Island (led by Gabriel Byrne) are negligent.  It's based on a true story of the Craigslist Ripper - who allegedly killed between 10 and 16 people over two decades - and while I respect Garbus' message, that the authorities didn't really 'do their job' because the victims were sex workers and weren't given respect as human beings, it just feels like a filmed Dateline episode except with top-notch actors.  It's clearly a tragedy (and, like the Zodiac Killer, the real offender was never caught), but the relentlessly downbeat tone (and abuse of gray filters) with no path to salvation (Mari, in real life, was murdered by her mentally-ill daughter) only makes it wallow in despair.