Sixteen-year-old Margot and her dad, David, are still working on getting their lives back to normal after the death of Margot’s mom. Like a lot of teens, Margot (Michelle La) communicates with her dad mostly by text and FaceTime. One afternoon David (John Cho) realizes that his daughter didn’t come home from a study group, didn’t go to school the next day and isn’t answering his earnest messages about the full garbage can, he reports her missing and starts searching.
Searching is a film made entirely from the perspective of the technology in our daily lives. We see David, Margot and Margot’s mom, Pam, through their digital footprints—videos, texts, video chats, etc. David uses every resource he can find to dig through his daughter’s life to find out what happened to her while the detective (Debra Messing) investigating the case pulls all-nighters and pulls out all the stops to solve the case.
While we watch David find and shift through Margot’s social media accounts, talk to her friends, and try to find out who she was, we see how the divide between families can be exacerbated by our tech culture. Technology allows us to interact but often superficially as with Margot and her dad. It can act as a barrier to deep conversations and necessary heart-to-hearts.
Searching captures the desperation and confusion that accompanies this type of emergency. It feels innovative even though it’s not the first film to use the point of view of electronics. It’s scary in a way that only reality can be.
What I like: It feels realistic. The characters feel real, they do things I would do to solve problems. I didn’t see the ending coming—and it was satisfying.
What I didn’t: The wrap up has A LOT of exposition, we didn’t need everything spelled out for us.
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