I’ll be honest, I was a bit unsure of Searching. The premise isn’t exactly anything groundbreaking. A daughter is presumed missing after not returning home one night. The dad helps local law enforcement with the search. Nothing that we haven’t seen before. Searching was banking on performances and, to a larger extent, its unique POV camera style to draw in the viewers. From the performance standpoint, they nailed it.
Searching has a fairly small cast. John Cho is the lead as father David Kim, whose daughter Margot (Michelle La) doesn’t come home after being at an AP Bio class study group. Debra Messing is the detective working the case, Rosemary Vick. Cho and Messing receive most of the screen time, and they both turn in great performances, especially Cho. Given the unique filming style, much of the film was essentially a close-up of Cho. His acting chops (and face) were on full display the entire movie. Any slip up he had would have been magnified. But fortunately he was on point from start to finish. His is one of the finer acting jobs of the year.
But the filming style is the real hook here. Every shot is from the POV of some sort of device, be it a laptop webcam, a computer screen, a cell phone, security camera, anything of the sort. And when I say every shot, it is literally every shot. Director Aneesh Chaganty and cinematographer Juan Sebastian Baron certainly had to get creative with how to keep that up throughout the whole movie. And when it works, wow, it really works. As a viewer, you’re not necessarily seeing anything you don’t see on any given normal day of your life. We’re using social media, watching TV, on our phones and computers all the time. But seeing real life events play out from the POV of these inanimate objects provides a sort of surreal experience.
That being said, however, when it doesn’t work, it’s bad. There are a handful of scenes that feel forced that really take you out of the movie. The most egregious of these are the the times when David and Rosemary are video chatting. Thankfully I don’t have any personal experience in this regard, but I can’t imagine this is a common practice. But the story needed a way for the two of them to communicate that fit within the filming style. So from that standpoint, this was probably the best decision. But it still just felt “off” every time they spoke this way.
The twists and turns (not a spoiler to say that, as this kind of movie always has a few) are fine. Nothing that is mind-blowing or awesome. But each is “satisfactory” at the very least. Nothing ever feels like a cop-out and everything is explained and makes sense in the context of the movie. And that sums up the movie as a whole pretty well. If you’re looking for something ground-breaking that is going to redefine the thriller/mystery genre, this isn’t that movie. But if you want a well-acted movie with a unique spin on the genre, Searching is a great way to spend a couple hours of your day.
