Review of Searching (2018) by Jon C — 31 Aug 2018

Another found footage movie like 'Unfriended' where the entirety of the story takes place on a computer screen but there's no supernatural stuff involved.

Instead this movie is more deeply rooted in realism.

We spend a lot of time in the real world and the other part of it in the digital world of the Internet.

On the plus side it's a way for all of us to connect to the world and our closest friends and family members; on the other hand it also opens the door for menacing intentions from bad people we don't know or ever wish to know.

The focus here is on 15-year old Margot Kim and her father David, they've always relied on one another and sharing their computers to preserve their memories.

Sadly, when the mother dies from being sick Margot is almost completely cut off from her dad.

All seems normal until one night after missing a video call David comes to the conclusion that something has happened to her.

He calls Detective Vick to handle her case going through her list of contacts, her hardrive, and discovering if she either ran away or was involved in something far more sinister.

It's got that Hitchcock-vibe with a lot of suspense to with it plus an unexpected surprise I totally didn't see although it comes up short from being perfect.

Still, this is a film now part of the modern age of cyber thrillers that hits so many timely themes making it feel that much more life-like, it's truly not that far off from something like this actually happening to someone.

Anybody with a computer can get sucked into this fabric of reality and pay the price for it.

We are what we hide, we never truly know our children, and what's really behind the profiles we create online, what secrets are we hiding, who are our real friends?

John Cho and Debra Messing are excellent playing off each other given that they have to act in front of a computer monitor the whole time.

Another worthy found footage flick without being gimmicky.