‘Searching’ ups the ante for social media cinema
Much of modern life is lived online and through screens and camera lenses, but movies haven’t reflected this reality very well.
The only genre that has attempted to make the Internet more than a cinematic accessory has been horror where such recent films as “Unfriended” and “Unfriended: Dark Web” — shot entirely as if the viewer were looking at a computer screen — turn the web into a digital haunted house. There are parallels to the whole found-footage fad, where the likes of the “Paranormal Activity” franchise, “V/H/S,” “Cloverfield” and the granddaddy of them all, “The Blair Witch Project,” make the technology of video cameras or security cameras more compelling than any of the stock characters.
But director/co-writer Aneesh Chaganty’s inventive “Searching” ups the ante, turning a technological gimmick into something resembling emotional truth. While it’s produced by Timur Bekmambetov, who coproduced the “Unfriended” films, “Searching” is not a horror film, though it is terrifying in the sense of one’s life and routine unexpectedly being thrown into chaos and confusion.
On the surface, “Searching” is a simple story: A Silicon Valley
tech worker and single father, David Kim ( John Cho) has to drop everything to look for his teenage daughter, Margot (Michelle La), who seems to have vanished without a trace or warning. With the help of a hard-nosed detective (Debra Messing, surprisingly effective in a noncomedic role), he’s determined to find out what happened.
This could be the bare bones plot of a “Law & Order” episode. Instead, “Searching” takes place entirely online, through web searches, webcams, Face Time and YouTube videos, phone messages, text messages, security cameras, television news footage, Google Maps, Google Calendar, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr and Venmo pages. While this might sound as exciting as filling in an Excel spread sheet, Chaganty manages to invest these everyday tools with urgency and narrative drive.
That’s clear from the film’s opening moments, set more than a decade ago, when David, his wife Pam (Sara Sohn) and a very young Margot set up their new social media accounts. Through these accounts, Chaganty taps deep into digital nostalgia — the sound of a dial-up modem is like getting a call from an old friend — and viewers not only watch Margot grow into young womanhood but also follow how the Chos dealt with a family tragedy. There are echoes here of the famous “married life montage” in Pixar’s “Up” where even the most hard-hearted moviegoers couldn’t believe they were tearing up at an animated movie.
But the emotions shift as the film moves into present day when Margot is not anywhere she is supposed to be — school, with friends, piano lessons — and David becomes increasingly frantic as he tries to retrace her online footsteps. Margot has an entire online life of which David was unaware and the deeper he digs, the more dangerous and frightening it gets.
Yet, “Searching” isn’t an episode of the chillingly technophobic series “Black Mirror.” If technology can be a gateway to abuse, stalking and real-world harm, it also help can be the solution, according to Chaganty’s view.
“Searching” derives much of its impact from its realism — Chaganty uses real websites and their visual aesthetics, not the invented ones many movies utilize — and the underrated Cho who transcends the gimmickry of the concept to deliver an empathetic performance. After awhile, you forget that you’re watching him on a webcam or security camera.
The film does drag on a bit too long, there are some obvious red herrings and it doesn’t end as memorably as it starts. Still, “Searching” is like a refreshed web page, a new take on something woefully familiar.