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Searching
We live in a world that is all about technology and its power to control and manipulate lives. The power of the internet and how it can destroy lives, protect criminals, keep secrets, and help those in crisis is brilliantly examined in a riveting and original 2018 drama called Searching that may have seriously considering deleting or at least re-thinking your browser history.
This dazzling independent sleeper stars John Cho as David Kim, a loving husband and father who lost is wife to cancer three years ago. David and his daughter, Margot, have worked through their grief and are learning to be a family again until one night Margot calls David to tell him that she is going to be at a friend's house all night studying for an exam in AP Bio. Thirty-six hours pass and Margot still hasn't come home. After speaking to a sympathetic police detective (Debra Messing), David decides to begin his own investigation into what happened to his daughter by meticulously reviewing his recent texts with her and, more importantly, breaking into her laptop.
Director and co-screenwriter Aneesh Chaganty has created a truly unique screen entertainment here, not so much in the story itself but in the way that he chooses to tell this rather ordinary missing person mystery. Chaganty has mounted a story about the often limitless power of today's technology and tells the story through that technology itself. For the majority of its running time, the movie screen is pretty much a computer screen that the viewer is looking at and watch David maneuvering his way through his daughter's laptop to find clues about her. There's a lot of screentime where all we see is the computer screen and the cursor moving in and out of search engines and opening up all the files on his daughter's laptop to find the names of some of her friends. Those who are computer illiterate might be simultaneously educated and confused as we watch David navigate his daughter's laptop. I love the sequence where he gets into Margot's e-mail by clicking onto the "Forgot your password?" link and having it allow David to create a new password so he can open Margot's e-mail.
A very human story almost gets enveloped by all the technology on display here. There's a ten minute scene near the beginning of the movie where David and Margot are skyping with each other (referred to here as "face time") that beautifully establishes the relationship between this struggling father and daughter who have clearly been through hell and back dealing with the mother's death and it's such an effective springboard for the viewer to become completely engrossed when Margot does go missing. I love the way this story is told through the technology in the story and not the technology of the filmmaker. There's this brilliant scene where David is trying to get information out of his brother and he installs cameras in the house and the whole scene is photographed through those cameras...or when he attacks a friend of Margo's at a movie theater and we are privy to it as a video on You Tube.
Chaganty creates a sizzling tension here that had me completely riveted to the screen throughout and when it was over I was literally shaking, mainly because every time I thought I knew what was going on, I wasn't even close. John Cho, who I've always felt is one of the industry's most underrated actors, does a powerhouse turn as David and Messing is equally compelling as Detective Rosemary Vick. This was a one-of-a-kind motion picture drama that left me limp and trembling. Aneesh Chaganty is a director to watch.
We live in a world that is all about technology and its power to control and manipulate lives. The power of the internet and how it can destroy lives, protect criminals, keep secrets, and help those in crisis is brilliantly examined in a riveting and original 2018 drama called Searching that may have seriously considering deleting or at least re-thinking your browser history.
This dazzling independent sleeper stars John Cho as David Kim, a loving husband and father who lost is wife to cancer three years ago. David and his daughter, Margot, have worked through their grief and are learning to be a family again until one night Margot calls David to tell him that she is going to be at a friend's house all night studying for an exam in AP Bio. Thirty-six hours pass and Margot still hasn't come home. After speaking to a sympathetic police detective (Debra Messing), David decides to begin his own investigation into what happened to his daughter by meticulously reviewing his recent texts with her and, more importantly, breaking into her laptop.
Director and co-screenwriter Aneesh Chaganty has created a truly unique screen entertainment here, not so much in the story itself but in the way that he chooses to tell this rather ordinary missing person mystery. Chaganty has mounted a story about the often limitless power of today's technology and tells the story through that technology itself. For the majority of its running time, the movie screen is pretty much a computer screen that the viewer is looking at and watch David maneuvering his way through his daughter's laptop to find clues about her. There's a lot of screentime where all we see is the computer screen and the cursor moving in and out of search engines and opening up all the files on his daughter's laptop to find the names of some of her friends. Those who are computer illiterate might be simultaneously educated and confused as we watch David navigate his daughter's laptop. I love the sequence where he gets into Margot's e-mail by clicking onto the "Forgot your password?" link and having it allow David to create a new password so he can open Margot's e-mail.
A very human story almost gets enveloped by all the technology on display here. There's a ten minute scene near the beginning of the movie where David and Margot are skyping with each other (referred to here as "face time") that beautifully establishes the relationship between this struggling father and daughter who have clearly been through hell and back dealing with the mother's death and it's such an effective springboard for the viewer to become completely engrossed when Margot does go missing. I love the way this story is told through the technology in the story and not the technology of the filmmaker. There's this brilliant scene where David is trying to get information out of his brother and he installs cameras in the house and the whole scene is photographed through those cameras...or when he attacks a friend of Margo's at a movie theater and we are privy to it as a video on You Tube.
Chaganty creates a sizzling tension here that had me completely riveted to the screen throughout and when it was over I was literally shaking, mainly because every time I thought I knew what was going on, I wasn't even close. John Cho, who I've always felt is one of the industry's most underrated actors, does a powerhouse turn as David and Messing is equally compelling as Detective Rosemary Vick. This was a one-of-a-kind motion picture drama that left me limp and trembling. Aneesh Chaganty is a director to watch.