Review of Searching (2018) by Bertaut1 — 07 Sep 2018

Rubbish plot, but aesthetically well crafted.

Searching is a film with two main organisational principles; there's the thriller plot, which ostensibly keeps everything moving, and to which everything else should, in theory, be in service. Then there's the aesthetic design, with the entire film taking place online, the images presented taking the form of what is seen on computer screens, iPhones, security cameras etc. One of these principles is exceptionally well handled, the other isn't, and it shouldn't take a genius to guess which is which.

Written by Aneesh Chaganty and Sev Ohanian, and directed by Chaganty, the film tells the story of Margot Kim (Michelle La) and her father, David (John Cho). Margot's mother Pamela (Sara Sohn) died several years previously, and Margot has since drifted apart from David, although he doesn't seem to have noticed. When Margot doesn't return home from a study group, David learns she cancelled her piano lessons six months prior, and the money he had been giving her for those lessons was instead being deposited into her bank account. Several weeks ago, the entirety was transferred to a now deactivated Venmo account. David reports her missing, with the case assigned to Det. Rosemary Vick (Debra Messing). However, as David and Vick begin to delve deeper into Margot's life, every investigative avenue seems to throw up another mystery, and as time passes, it begins to look more and more as if Margot has simply run away.

The mise en scène of Searching is much more successful than the plot, with almost the entire film taking place on a computer screen, with Facetime conversations, iPhone messages, security camera footage, and TV material rounding out the design. The aesthetic is extremely well crafted; from Chaganty's direction to Juan Sebastian Baron's cinematography, to Nicholas D. Johnson and Will Merrick's editing; logistically, this can't have been an easy film to plan or shoot, and the fact that the various components that go into making up the final image all work so well together suggests a great degree of care.

Within this, the filmmakers are even able to throw up a few surprises. For example, the structure grants us more access to David's interiority than would be possible in a regular film; on several occasions, David is shown typing something during a conversation, only to delete it, and send something completely different. Anyone who has spent any amount of time talking online or via text will be familiar with this, and the use of it in the film allows us a glance into his psyche, showing us where his mind is in an unfiltered sense, before self-censorship kicks in. It only happens a few times (if it happened too much, it would become meaningless), but it really does impart a degree of psychological verisimilitude.

Chaganty himself is a former Google Creative Lab employee, so he would know a thing or two about issues such as the uses and over-uses of technology, the unpleasant side of online culture, and the notion of digital footprints, and it is these areas where most of the film's more salient points are concentrated. For example, the addiction to technology and social media so prevalent in today's culture is right there in the set-up - the entire Kim family are obsessed with speaking to one another via phones and computers, and recording pretty much everything. Another subject is the toxicity of the internet, the prevalence of online troll culture, and the tendency for people to say things online that they never would in person, believing that the anonymity afforded by the internet gives them the right to be unpleasant. This is communicated primarily through one scene - after watching a news report about Margot on YouTube, David begins reading the comments, which almost immediately start making jokes about him having killed her, and being "father of the year".

The impossibility of ever being invisible online is another topic. Yes, the film is about a person who had an entire online existence that no one knew about, but that was only because no one had looked. Once someone did, and once a few threads were pulled, everything is exposed, as the impossibility of erasing ones digital footprint becomes central to the story. Anyone who has spent any amount of time online will be familiar with many of these issues, and the fact that they all ring so true, without the film becoming preachy, is a testament to the quality of the film-making.

Finally, and this cannot be overemphasised, the film includes a pitch-perfect, perfectly timed, perfectly delivered Justin Bieber joke that is absolutely hilarious, and has to be seen to be appreciated.