Review of Searching (2018) by Rebecca31 — 07 Sep 2018

This might just be the one and only film that has taken the premise of using a mock computer for the whole film and actually made it work. Admittedly there's not a whole lot of competition in this genre but compare it to the Unfriended franchise and Searching looks like a masterpiece.

David Kim (John Cho) is in a strained relationship with his 16-year-old daughter. She goes missing and with the growing realisation that he doesn't know much about his own daughter and her friends he must break into her laptop to track her last known whereabouts in order to find her. It thankfully didn't take a turn into the ridiculous and use a ghostly computer glitch. Instead it takes an idea grounded in reality, using the real life fear of a parent not knowing their child's whereabouts and follows their struggle in possibly coming to terms with the worst. I liked the idea and it kept the tension, but for me the last act lets it down. Searching had about four different endings and decided to use all four and honestly I wasn't pushed on the last one, so at a certain point I was slightly concerned my eyes were going to roll into the back of my head because I just wasn't buying it anymore. Yet despite the unsatisfying ending Searching is worth checking out if you've nothing else to see. A decent thriller/mystery that you can sit back with your bucket of popcorn and enjoy. Recommended if you've seen everything else in the cinema.