Review of Searching (2018) by John M — 30 Aug 2018

I am here for this type of movie. So this is about a single father (John Cho). His 16-year-old daughter (Michelle La) stays late for a study group one night, and he thinks nothing of it... until she doesn't come home the following morning.

The police can only do so much, so he decides to take matters into his own hands: by looking for clues on what may have happened on his daughter's laptop. Now this is a new subgenre that I have been a big proponent of: the laptop movie.

So far, it is waters that haven't been tamed so to speak, and to my knowledge, it is just this and the Unfriended series leading the wave. The original trailer to this looked nothing short of superb, so of course I had to check this out opening weekend.

I had high expectations for this, and I was not disappointed with this twisty-turny little detective mystery. Now this is a movie that hooks you pretty early on, and it does have a large amount to do with the manner that the story is presented on.

Searching utilizes the most popular and recognizable channels of social media, and because of that, it always stay relatable. It integrates all of the common internet seamlessly, and it is shown just like it would be if you were trying to get something accomplished on a computer.

I appreciated all of the evidence featured here, because they make it make logical sense on how they arrived at each specific point. With a number of mystery stories, you can sometimes get bogged down in the details.

Not with Searching. Because you are on a laptop and you always know exactly what you are supposed to be giving priority attention to, it really gives the narrative a strong boost. Reveals happen exactly when they are supposed to, you don't outthink the story, and it keeps your focus on exactly what it is supposed to be on.

Ultimately, it is John Cho's movie, and I think he does a fine job as this determined father, getting to show more range than what is typically asked of him. I do think the laptop movie is the new bottle movie, and it really invigorates the found footage genre.

This moves very fast with plenty of plot twists to keep you interested. My complaints are sparse nitpicks, like how it feels the need to punctuate a revelation with an additional browser tab being pulled up, but I guess that is there for the people who are only paying half attention.

Searching is a fresh take on the detective movie, and I give it an enthusiastic recommendation.