How well do you know someone?
Searching (12A)
Starring: John Cho, Michelle La, Debra Messing
Director: Aneesh Chaganty
The Plot: David Kim (Cho) is a single parent to sixteen year-old Margot (La), and the two share what he believes is a strong relationship. David's world is rocked, however, when one night Margot suddenly goes missing, without any indication why. He goes to the police, and Detective Vick (Messing) begins an investigation, but David frantically carries out his own search by going into Margot's social media and talking with her friends - and this reveals a very different version of his daughter than he thought he knew. As the days pass and the circumstances grow more and more mysterious, David faces many different and difficult questions: has Margot run away? Has she been kidnapped? Is she still alive? And is he somehow part of the reason why?
Check out the trailer for the film here.
Review: It's fair to say that the Internet dominates today's society. More and more aspects of our lives have come to revolve around it, particularly when it comes to smartphones, computers and social media, allowing us to connect to other people in ways that weren't possible before, for both good and bad. It's become the norm, and over the last few years in particular films have really started to embrace this in the stories they tell and how they tell visually tell them. Take 2014's Men, Women & Children for example - a film that explores how the Internet affects the relationships of different people, and frequently shows its characters interacting via apps that pop up on the screen as colourful bubbles with their chats. In the same year, the horror film Unfriended went a step further and told its story entirely from the static view of a character's laptop screen, the characters themselves only appearing via its webcam and group chat programs. Searching takes that concept and ramps it up a notch, telling an intriguing tale of mystery in a very original and effective visual way.
Searching is told entirely from the screens of multiple devices and media: the desktop of Michelle's laptop, Facetime calls, phone screens, live streaming websites, CCTV cameras, online news videos, hidden cameras, and various social media like Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr. There isn't a single scene that's presented in the traditional way that a film is shot, with every one framed as if you're viewing it on a screen of a device of some kind, and I believe I'm right in saying that this is the first film to ever present its story like this - Unfriended comes close, as I mentioned, but that was one static shot. The sheer variety of ways that Searching presents itself, and the effortless way in which it swaps between them, is both unique and very effective. The opening sequence is particularly good: we see Margot growing up and the technology that David uses to record memories of her changing as time goes by, and it engages you emotionally from the start as we see his wife Pamela at first beat but then succumb to cancer when Margot reaches the age of 14. It sets up both the visual style and the tone of the story that's to follow very well.
The main story of Margot's disappearance is very clever one, featuring lots of twists and turns deliberately intended to make you follow David's increasingly desperate journey, often jumping to the wrong conclusions while at the same time presenting you with some clues that the more observant members of the audience will pick up on and correctly guess where the story is heading. It's very good writing (co-written by director Aneesh Chaganty and Sev Ohanian) and, considering it's 12A rating, gets to explore some very dark themes that are relevant in today's society: grief at the loss of a loved one, cyber-stalking, and in David's case particularly, the thin line between desperation and obsession. Margot is a bit of an enigma, appearing mostly through past recordings on a live streaming website, and Michelle La does a good job of capturing both her true sadness and the happier mask that she displays to her father. It's John Cho as David, however, that provides the real driving force of the film.
Cho is most well known for comedy roles. If you're my age, your first introduction to him was likely as the guy who created the word "MILF" in American Pie, and for many others he'll be most well-known as Harold from the Harold & Kumar series. He's been in a lot of things since then, including the modern Star Trek films as Mr Sulu, but Searching is his first leading, serious role, and he's excellent. David manages to be both a sympathetic character and an unlikeable one: he at first seems like a loving father, clearly still affected by the loss of his wife and as a result perhaps a bit more protective of his daughter than he needs to be, but as the story unfolds the uglier aspects of David's personality come out as he succumbs to desperation and frustration. He makes several choices without even considering the moral impact of them, even going as far as to accuse his own brother of having an affair with Margot. Ultimately his character doesn't go too far down this road, remaining one that the audience can get behind, but Cho handles all these different aspects of David's personality very well and, based on this performance, clearly shows he's capable of leading, dramatic roles. It's his performance that drives the story along, and it's David that ultimately provides the key to solving the mystery of Margot's disappearance.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Searching is told entirely from the screens of multiple devices and media: the desktop of Michelle's laptop, Facetime calls, phone screens, live streaming websites, CCTV cameras, online news videos, hidden cameras, and various social media like Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr. There isn't a single scene that's presented in the traditional way that a film is shot, with every one framed as if you're viewing it on a screen of a device of some kind, and I believe I'm right in saying that this is the first film to ever present its story like this - Unfriended comes close, as I mentioned, but that was one static shot. The sheer variety of ways that Searching presents itself, and the effortless way in which it swaps between them, is both unique and very effective. The opening sequence is particularly good: we see Margot growing up and the technology that David uses to record memories of her changing as time goes by, and it engages you emotionally from the start as we see his wife Pamela at first beat but then succumb to cancer when Margot reaches the age of 14. It sets up both the visual style and the tone of the story that's to follow very well.
The main story of Margot's disappearance is very clever one, featuring lots of twists and turns deliberately intended to make you follow David's increasingly desperate journey, often jumping to the wrong conclusions while at the same time presenting you with some clues that the more observant members of the audience will pick up on and correctly guess where the story is heading. It's very good writing (co-written by director Aneesh Chaganty and Sev Ohanian) and, considering it's 12A rating, gets to explore some very dark themes that are relevant in today's society: grief at the loss of a loved one, cyber-stalking, and in David's case particularly, the thin line between desperation and obsession. Margot is a bit of an enigma, appearing mostly through past recordings on a live streaming website, and Michelle La does a good job of capturing both her true sadness and the happier mask that she displays to her father. It's John Cho as David, however, that provides the real driving force of the film.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Searching is a very unique, interesting tale of mystery and suspense. Given it's 12A rating it isn't able to dive too far into the dark themes it deals with and doesn't examine the outcome of some of the moral choices that David makes, but both the visual style and the story itself are very effective and it's driven by a fantastic performance from John Cho. Highly recommended!
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