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The everyday life of a teenager has changed a great deal in the last 20 or 30 years. Where teens once had to communicate using the one corded phone in the middle of the house, which they shared with the rest of the family, they now have smart phones and social media. And in Searching, those differences become painfully obvious—and possibly deadly.
Searching stars John Cho as David Kim, the widowed dad of teenage daughter Margot (Michelle La). Since the death of his wife, his relationship with his daughter has been difficult. But it isn’t until she goes missing that he realizes just how little he knows about her. As Detective Rosemary Vick (Debra Messing) leads the investigation, David breaks into Margot’s laptop to search for clues to her life: her friends, her activities, and where she might have gone on the night that she disappeared.
From the opening montage of Searching, it’s clear that this isn’t just a fluffy teen thriller. Through digital photo albums, saved videos, and emails, it tells the story of the Kim family’s joys and heartbreak—of piano lessons and first days of school and a wife and mother’s losing battle with cancer. But the unexpectedly heavy opening is just the first of the film’s surprises.
Searching is a story told through chat and Facetime, through email and social media. Everything plays out on either a phone screen or a computer monitor—often with multiple things happening at once—which means that the characters are seen as they would be on screen, complete with harsh lighting and awkward angles. It’s often surprisingly quiet, too, with David’s searches accompanied by nothing but the clicking of the mouse.
Meanwhile, the story goes the way that most investigations do. It has its highs and lows, its breakthroughs and its dead ends. It has times when it’s entirely breakneck, and it has times when it starts to drag. It twists and turns, too—sometimes in surprising ways, sometimes in exactly the way you were expecting. And all of that makes for an intriguing mystery.
Beyond the suspense and surprises, though, Searching is also an eye-opening cautionary tale for parents. When Margot goes missing, David realizes that he doesn’t really know her. He discovers that, even though we’re constantly connected to the entire world through text and email and messenger and Facetime and multiple forms of social media, we often end up disconnected in our relationships. And after watching the story play out, you’ll most likely be determined to sit down and have more detailed conversations with your loved ones.
More than just a brainless end-of-summer thriller, Searching is a tense and tangled drama with a digital twist. While the revelations may not always be entirely surprising, it’s sure to hit most parents right in the gut.
Listen to the review on Reel Discovery:
