Review of Searching (2018) by Chris O — 08 Sep 2018

A beautiful, gut-wrenching drama that may turn out to be one of the year's best.

After David Kim (John Cho)'s 16-year-old daughter goes missing, a local investigation is opened and a detective is assigned to the case. But 37 hours later and without a single lead, David decides to search the one place no one has looked yet, where all secrets are kept today: his daughter's laptop. In a hyper-modern thriller told via the technology devices we use every day to communicate, David must trace his daughter's digital footprints before she disappears forever.

There was something about the trailer of this film that just got to me. The intensity, the brilliant marketing, the acting, it all looked so good. And to be honest, this has been one of my most anticipated films for a while. When I saw this film on opening night, it was nothing less than amazing. In fact, it's one of my favorite films of the year.

The film starts out with this emotional look into their family life. It had a mix of nostalgic feelings and utmost emotion. From there, it maintained that level of emotion and kept us clinging to our seats. Throughout the film, we were given moments of sadness, intensity, and question. We were constantly asking questions and constantly turned around, just to be left in the middle of one giant puzzle. It was fun, to say the least, if not flat out extraordinary.

The acting in this film really meshed well with the style they approached this with. Like a couple of films in recent memory, this film takes place entirely on computer screens. I thought that in addition to powerful performances from John Cho and co. really made this film so heartbreaking. It felt so real and so scary in so many different ways. I felt very connected to the characters and I felt as though I was smack down in the middle of this situation.

"Searching" is a scary film. It's scary because of how real it is. It shows the lengths someone will go to to find their daughter. I think I can relate on an emotional level to this film but right now, I can't understand what that'd be like for a parent. The film took so many different twists and different routes but in the best way possible. I never felt tired of this film and it kept me on a roller coaster of emotions. It never felt like it dragged on or slowed down too much and in a mystery-thriller, that's really hard to pull off.

In the end, I loved "Searching". It did everything so well and so beautifully and it's one of the most memorable of the entire year.