Movie Reaction: Searching

Formula: Unfriended / Gone Girl

Good luck finding someone who is a bigger sucker for found-footage gimmick movies than me. I love the style and the creativity needed for the style. The Blair Witch Project was nice, but it really started with Cloverfield for me. Ever since, everything from Paranormal Activity to The Den I've eaten up. The first two V/H/S movies are among my favorite movies in any category. I dig the verisimilitude of it all. The natural evolution of the genre is to focus on the screens rather than the cameras. When Unfriended came out a few years back, I was there opening weekend, even though I was certain it would be underwhelming. I just wanted to see how they would pull off the challenge: telling an entire narrative when restricted to what's on a computer screen. I even liked the webcam coming of age movie Face2Face earlier this year. Or rather, I liked the experience of watching it. The story wasn't great.

So, when I heard about Searching - a thriller about a father trying to find his lost daughter, told entirely through screens - I was determined to see it as soon as I could.

I'm pleased to say that it was worth the wait.

I have to be careful about this movie. I don't want to tip its hand in any way. It's a thriller with a central mystery full of a lot of twists and turns. All I really want to say about the plot is that it's about David Kim (John Cho). He's a single father who's daughter goes missing one night under mysterious circumstances. Debra Messing plays a detective who leads the investigation to find her. And that's all I'm going to say about the story.

Director Aneesh Chaganty choreographs the movie to move between screens and devices in a way that never gets dull. He doesn't limit things too much. When needed, the movie will switch from one computer to another. He uses nearly every form of video available. There's clips from news stories, YouTube videos, Skype calls, old home videos, and web chats. At one point, he even uses the GPS on a phone while David is making a call. The movie never cheats. I also never felt like I needed more than I was getting from the central conceit. At its heart, this is a terrific thriller, and the "gimmick" makes things even more exciting. Film and TV have always been awful at capturing what's exciting about investigating something on a computer. That's because it's normally the camera looking over the shoulder of someone doing something on a computer, which is passive and dull. By making the screen the focus, it feels more active for the audience. You can pull information from the screen and make the mental connections in real time. It's almost like the audience is doing the investigation. I can't think of another movie that's been able to capture what's interesting about going down and internet rabbit hole.

I'm not sure how computer savvy you need to be to appreciate the movie. I think Searching does a great job explaining what it's doing in  intuitive ways, but I can also see how if you don't know what Venmo is, it could be easy to lose track. Certainly if you don't get how Forgot Password features work or even recognize Facebook, that's a massive barrier. Then again, if you are reading this blog post, you are probably tech-fluent enough to follow this movie.

Cho and Messing are very good, considering they weren't in the same room as anyone for most of their scenes. I always forget how old Cho is, so it took me a minute to realize that him having a 16 year old daughter isn't a stretch at all. And Messing plays a believable detective. She's comfortable in that skin. Both give very lived-in performances.

That's all I'll say before moving into a spoilery take below. I loved this movie. If it doesn't end up in my top 10 for the year, I'll be shocked. It's thrilling. It's intense. I genuinely teared up a time or two. I can't recommend it more, especially if you enjoy movies that play with form.

Verdict(?): Strongly Recommend

After the Credits

A few thoughts for people who have seen the movie or don't care about being spoiled.

I have a feeling that anyone who really understands how police investigations work* would tear this apart. The giant twist of the movie depends entirely on a corrupt investigation that's able to be manipulated by a single rogue officer despite the eyes of the entire department being on the case. Depending on the kind of stickler you are, that may pull you out of the movie entirely. We all have certain movie tropes that are pet peeves that we have trouble forgiving in a movie no matter how good it is otherwise. I certainly do. Luckily, none of my pet peeves occur in Searching. I just got to go along for the ride and enjoy it all.

*I mean, actual law enforcement officers. Law & Order fans shouldn't have a problem enjoying the movie.

I wasn't expecting how much emotion they'd milk out of showing the evolution of technology. The opening few minutes of the movie will get comparisons to Up and for good reason. It's very effective. So much so, that when Cho pulls out the old Windows XP computer at one point to sign into his wife's account, I tightened up. It's like walking into the untouched bedroom of a child who died.

You'll notice that I'm still avoiding details even in this section. That's because I really don't want to spoil this. See the movie.