"I Didn't Know Her. I Didn't Know My Own Daughter..."
With 2015's Unfriended offering a subversive and original spin on the found footage genre of horror with great success, the same cinematic platform used within that movie returns once again in Searching, a Hitchcockian cyber-space psychological thriller which takes place completely upon the wide range of technological platforms belonging to leading star John Cho's (Star Trek Beyond) David Kim, a single father still mourning the death of his wife who attempts to solve the mystery of his daughter's recent disappearance via any means possible. Whilst many audiences may feel alienated by the claustrophobic nature of viewing events of a movie from a screen most people now continuously glare at on a daily basis, myself included, debut writer and director, Aneesh Chaganty, successfully manages to build the tension and unravel the central mystery at the heart of the drama with great aplomb, utilising well-known technological formats which not only conveys the hunt for Michelle La's Margot Kim, but also finds the time to joyfully poke fun at and satirically comment on the emptiness and shallowness of social media, and whilst Chaganty's debut does suffer slightly from a strangely artificial sensibility and a couple of hokey performances, Searching is an interesting and fun slice of cinematic guess-who.
Beginning with historical exposition which explores the heartbreak of the Kim family and their sudden matriarchal loss brilliantly set to the backdrop of the evolution of computer systems over the past few years, Searching takes no time whatsoever in getting to the crux of the drama, with John Cho's large, selfie-style head looking continuously distraught as his daughter's disappearance brings to light hidden secrets regarding her infidelity and uneven social life in the real world when on the virtual side, everything previously seemed fine. Whilst the central mystery of Searching does contain some effective and clever narrative twists, the best parts of the movie is undoubtedly the social commentary it makes in reference to social media culture, with one scene in which a previous uncaring acquaintance of Kim's suddenly breaks down in tears in front of the media after her prolonged absence in an attempt to gain a few minutes airtime both comedic and downright depressing, a telling image of contemporary society in which physical interaction is slowly being replaced with emoji's and gifs, and whilst the movie does ultimately end in the a-typical Hollywood cheese-fest audience's have come to expect, the journey before the film's conclusion was an impressive debut from a director we should be seeing much more of in the future.
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