Search Party

Last year, among the movies that flitted through theaters just on the edge of my radar was Searching. It was a suspense thriller starring John Cho, about a father trying to find his missing daughter. It looked like it might be interesting, but also looked quite gimmicky -- the entire movie was presented in the online world, in a series of computer screens, web cam images, FaceTime phone calls, and viral news clips. I hadn't really heard anyone I knew say the movie was actually good, and so it passed from my mind.

But it's kept bubbling back up since then. I've noticed reviews touting that it was far better than you'd expect. It would show up in the "suggestions" of various web sites and streaming services. And then, finally, someone I know did tell me they'd seen it and liked it a lot. In fact, when I said I was debating between Searching and another option or two, they emphatically told me: "watch Searching."

It turns out my friend was right: Searching is indeed quite good. And yes, as I'd imagined, it is quite gimmicky, but not at all in a bad way. For starters, the story here is actually a fairly clever mystery regardless of the format in which it's presented. David Kim's search for his daughter is full of suspects, breakthroughs, red herrings, and twists. It's a tense story in a taut little 100 minute package.

When you see the "gimmick" in action, it feels like a natural and smart evolution of a very long-standing narrative tradition: the one-act play. When presented on a stage, these stories are often told in a single location, working within that limitation. Here, the "single location" is, essentially, a computer screen. That too brings challenging limitations, but it also opens up some interesting storytelling techniques that wouldn't otherwise be available. It turns out that a computer screen is a great way of conveying a character's inner monologue, as we see a cursor hovering over something David is hesitant to click, or see him type something then reconsider and delete it without hitting "SEND."

If you're a real stickler, there are a couple of cheats within the format. You're not literally just watching a computer screen the entire time. Conventional camera techniques of zooming and panning are used to draw focus to particular moments. There's also a conventional (but well-crafted) suspense movie score, composed by Torin Borrowdale. To me, these seem like necessary concessions to traditional movie-making, to give this story the pacing and impact it needs. In any case, I don't think they detract from the purity of the premise.

And they certainly don't make it any easier for the actors. John Cho gives a very strong performance, and it would be easy not to appreciate how great he is here. He has to give us his character in little bits and pieces of screen time. The camera is never really helping him with his job -- he's often blurry, reversed, distant in frame, pixelated, or relegated to a tiny corner of the screen. But through all of these obstacles, he powers through and makes us care about his character and the situation. High marks too to Debra Messing, who plays against her comedic reputation as the police detective on the case; and Michelle La as David's daughter Margot (whose role in the story is even more fragmented than the main character's).

Indeed, I was quite surprised by just how much I liked Searching. Not only would I give it an A-, but when I compared it to other 2018 movies, I realized it was very high up on this list, in the #2 slot. It was a fun, suspenseful ride.