Searching - Dir. Aneesh Chaganty

The Social Network is a great film about the birth of social media but in the 8 years since that film’s release, there haven’t been too many great films about social media and our relationship with it. When not too busy gruesomely disposing of its characters, 2015’s Unfriended addressed bullying and the pervasive permanence of online activity from a viewpoint inside computer screens, the eyes of each character gazing down into the audience; it was a gimmick, but a well executed gimmick. Searching builds on that gimmick and develops into a film that brings to mind the unreliable storytelling of David Fincher’s Gone Girl and the teenage woes of Kelly Fremon Craig’s The Edge of Seventeen.

Two years on from the death of his wife Pamela (Sara Sohn), David Kim (John Cho) is raising their daughter Margot (Michelle La) on his own. When Margot doesn’t return home one evening, David grows ever more worried and an investigation, led by detective Rosemary Vick (Debra Messing) is launched. As the police explore the time honoured avenues, David searches through his daughter’s laptop in the hope of finding any clues, but finds some uncomfortable truths waiting for him too.

It’s a familiar mystery set up but it's given a refreshing update through the decision to have all of the action play out on desktop screen and mobile phones. As anyone who has sat and watched someone else play a computer game can attest, following a cursor across the cinema screen doesn’t sound like an enticing way to spend a couple of hours. Fortunately, director Aneesh Chaganty and co-writer Sev Ohanian have tailored their story to unravel within the constraints of the chosen filmmaking technique.

The onscreen typing and cursor movement is reflective of character’s emotions; clear and purposeful when determined, stuttered and hesitant when not. The action flows, unlike so many other films that present contemporary technology on screen, as if designed by someone who has actually used a computer. There are only a couple of occasions where screen actions feel less natural and more intended to ensure the audience is keeping up with the story. It feels intuitive, almost to the point where I was anticipating cursor movements just before they happened, akin to the experiences described by those who’ve used a ouija board and come away unsure as to whether they were leading the glass across the board or being led. Searching’s ouija board is the small screens we’ve come to use everyday and there’s a peculiar fascination in seeing these normally small actions blown up on the big screen.

As with all films that use diegetic footage (found or otherwise), characters often end up in situations where rationale would dictate ditching the camera but can’t do so without foregoing the filming style, which can prove distracting in some cases. Searching neatly avoids this as its cameras are always on, even when the characters wouldn’t want or need them to be. There’s perhaps only one instance where the use of a camera is a little too far-fetched, but it’s not wholly implausible. Even as the story takes more overtly sensationalist turns, it does so to draw parallels to rightfully scrutinized cases and incidents from recent years. Found footage films often come in well under 90 minutes but even at 100 minutes, Searching doesn’t drag; if anything, a few extra minutes may have helped the ending, which lays out events more succinctly than necessary and unloads a great deal of plot with all the grace and subtlety of a trapdoor.

Driving the story through the narrative twists and turns is the relationship between David and Margot. Watching David type, delete and retype every message to his daughter speaks volumes of the widening emotional gap between them; the glimpses of Margot’s private life help David to realize he was not as close to his daughter as he thought he was. More of these small screen stories may well make their way to the big screen in the future and their are undoubtedly many other genres that may suit this format. However, it’s the emotional core of a father’s relationship and his daughter, and all of things that have been left unsaid for too long, which ensures that Searching registers as more than just a successful technical exercise.

SEARCHING is released in UK cinemas on Friday 31st August 2018.