Searching is a techno-thriller by debutant Aneesh Chaganty that tells the story of a father tracking down his missing daughter. And undeniably, this film was one of the sweetest surprises of 2018!
The beauty of motion pictures genre is that, it is and will constantly keep on growing. Since technology has become humans' second nature in postmodern era, it's only fair films based off this crucial element be made and celebrated like any other once established ones. Told through the lens (no pun intended) of technological devices, the story began on a nostalgic path of the early days of computing systems. We follow the Kim family, from their past to present, leading up thru key event. Once David's (John Cho) child mysteriously vanished, what ensued was a gripping investigation thriller!
High praise for the screenplay, really! The overall usage of various apps one could find in operating systems to navigate through important plot points, backstories, information and exposition with ease was simply smooth and brilliant! FaceTime conversations, mouse movements and deleted messages to show hesitation or lingering thoughts plus the constant juggle between texts, calls and videos to push the story forward effortlessly while revealing character traits simultaneously were astounding! On a side note, it goes to show how your computer can tell A to Z about you!
Like any great movie, Searching made you care and root for these characters! With so much of personal and inner circle information being laid out to the audiences, we automatically became one of this family's members. First of all, the mother's death was touching! Protagonist David not realizing that evasion of the said topic is not the apt solution drove the Want and Need storyline. Him struggling to gather information in all forms of social media platform and ending up with zero positive outcome earned our empathy, on top of many other hard things he had to do. As he dug deeper into the rabbit hole, the more he realized the daughter was a stranger. It was scary, puzzling and one hell of a conundrum! Teens working out for some social media attention was a nice jab on the way too!
Both the writers managed to play with diversions effectively, with the involvement of David's brother and Margot's fake death led to be believed at first without a question in our minds. General sense of how and when to withhold or release information was matured! In such a serious proceeding, the filmmakers were able to massage the pacing with occasional humor! Although the eventual truth was a little stretch, convenient and came-out-of-nowhere like, it fell into place perfectly when more thoughts were put into it.
Torin Borrowdale's music was soothing to the ears! Without his score, it wouldn't have been moving as it was! With a fitting shutdown ending, we can't wait to see what Aneesh's up to next!