Searching (2018)

Searching, the feature debut by director and cowriter Aneesh Chaganty, qualifies as a stunt movie—virtually everything we see is from computer or smartphone screens. Yet even as the story grows stranger, more convoluted, and just plain improbable, it remains riveting like a great TV true-crime documentary. Margot Kim (Michelle La) is the 16-year-old only daughter of David (John Cho). Pamela, the mother, died in the past year or so and Searching comes with a very touching preamble. It's not just the Windows XP interfaces and sounds, so stand by, you might start bawling. In the real-time of the movie Pamela is seen only in photos and videos from the past, and the relationship between Margot and David has grown strained and distant. Then, overnight, Margot goes missing, leaving her laptop and only a few mysterious clues behind. When it becomes obvious to David after a day or two that no one has seen her, he contacts the police and begins to go through Margot's computer. Anyone who has ever had to troubleshoot a technical problem, or gone down any internet rabbit hole, or just had a normal day at the computer, will recognize the frenzy of search engine results, open windows, and text and video feeds David produces as he goes to work. He hacks into Margot's Gmail, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, and YouCast accounts, discovering she had a life he knows little about. The visuals in Searching are nothing new, beyond the relentless commitment to showing the interface imagery of a dazzling array of real brands (except possibly YouCast, which I've never heard of, but then David had never heard of Tumblr). There are a lot of twists and turns to Searching and some sly humor too—much appreciated to puncture the tension. A few scenes Chaganty wanted to include were obviously hard to conceive in terms of getting them to a computer screen but he does the best he can. You wince along with the unlikeliness and they are mercifully short, with narrative value. I liked best the way the picture mimics or perhaps even pays homage to sources like the Disappeared TV series, or the movie Catfish (also, I understand, Unfriended and Open Windows, which I haven't seen). Chaganty was scrupulously fair about some of the reveals and plot points, although it doesn't make any of it any more likely to happen in real life. But I suspect Searching might stand up to a second look or more. John Cho (Sulu in the new Star Trek and Harold of Harold & Kumar) and Debra Messing as Detective Vick, the chief investigator working the disappearance case (so Grace of Will & Grace with a stone face and a badge), do the things they do best at TV scale. It often works up an air of real mystery as the narrative layers peel back. There are great red herrings along the way and a suitably unexpected twist ending—again, unlikely but fair. Searching is worth seeing at least once.