"Searching" and Screen Life on Film

"Searching" is not the first film to take place mostly on a computer desktop. Techno-thrillers like "Open Windows" and the "Unfriended" films got there first. "Searching" also incorporates video calls, news reports, and other screen content, making it closer in spirit to traditional found footage films like "Paranormal Activity" and "Chronicle." However, "Searching" is one of the most successful at using these devices to tell an engaging story, and at portraying our present day relationships with computers, social media, and other tech in a more grounded way.

John Cho plays David Kim, the protective father of high school sophomore Margot (Michelle La). They've been distant since Margot's mother died, and David learns how little he knows about his daughter's life when she disappears one night after a study group. After multiple attempts at contact fail, he calls the police. A detective, Rosemary Vick (Debra Messing) is assigned to the case and turns up some concerning information. At her urging, David digs into Margot's online activity for clues, finding different facets of his daughter's life that he had no idea existed.

I love how effective "Searching" is at being a crime thriller using only present-day technology and completely plausible, everyday human interactions. We've seen so many of these movies gleefully involve the dark web, criminal underworlds, and grand conspiracies, that it's good to have a reminder that normal people using the internet the way real people do, already results in plenty of drama. And as a result, "Searching" is able to comment quite a bit about online mobs, catfishing, privacy concerns, and parental monitoring without feeling so sensationalist. Well, mostly.

At its heart, "Searching" is one of those parental paranoia stories that preys on our fears about the kind of trouble that kids are getting into online. However, in this movie many of those fears turn out to be unfounded, and search engines and Facebook are very helpful at times. A good chunk of the running time is spent simply following along as David Kim works his way along the digital trail and uncovers more and more information. This isn't as tedious as it sounds, thanks to good editing and the filmmakers' unusually strong facility with internet and mobile phone visual language. If you've ever watched someone play a point-and-click adventure game, or followed an event over the internet in real time, this feels very similar.

A lot of the film's immersiveness comes from director Aneesh Chaganty and his crew largely using real world sites, apps, and social media like Gmail, Facebook, Instagram, Venmo, Youtube, and so on. There are a lot of clever uses of familiar bits of computing imagery, like seeing the old Windows XP "Bliss" desktop image in a flashback, or the Apple "Flurry" screensaver shepherding along a scene transition. It's also apparent that the filmmakers went to extreme lengths to make sure that David and Margot's online worlds feel fully fleshed out and populated. Every E-mail subject line, Instagram screen name, Facebook photo, and Youtube sidebar recommendation feels believably clickable. There are some moments that strain credulity - David's is way too good at video surveillance - but not many.

When it comes to the family drama, however, it's the actors who sell it, with John Cho having no trouble carrying the picture for long stretches of time. This is one of his few headlining dramatic roles, and proves that he should absolutely be getting more work in this vein. When I first heard about the film, I was expecting a more traditional action thriller. Instead, "Searching" provides the opportunity for Cho to do something much more intimate and relatable. Because so much of the film is limited to the desktop, often all we see is Cho's face in a window, or hear his voice over a mobile phone.

After several years of films depicting life online to various degrees of success, "Searching" is the first where it doesn't feel like a gimmick, but a legitimate storytelling choice. I expect we'll be seeing many more like it in the future. They're cheap, they're effective, and they're increasingly relevant. As our lives keep moving online to a greater and greater degree, it's only natural that our movies should follow suit.
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