In the space of a few minutes, we fully understand the Kim family and what they've been through simply by looking at their internet activity or what they've uploaded to their computer. Searching brilliantly understands that, in the modern-day world, everyone's lives are so intertwined with their computers and electronic devices that you really can get a good clear picture of who a person is simply by, say, looking at what's saved on their computer. Through this excellent opening sequence, writers Aneesh Chaganty and Sev Ohanian (the former of this duo also directed Searching) clearly understand both present-day technology & how people use it, as well as how to creatively create compelling characters, two attributes that are omnipresent throughout the rest of Searching as well.
After this opening scene, we move to the Mac computer of David for the rest of the movie as he begins to grow more and more concerned about his daughter who has gone missing. After going to a study group with her friends, she never came home and now he's using the internet to try to get to the bottom of what could have happened to Margot. As he begins his investigation, he begins to realize how truly distant he had become from his daughter in recent years as she had a whole other online life that he never even knew about. This hunt for clues all transpires, of course on his computer screen, though features like Facetime allow for plenty of moments for an understandably desperate David to show up on-screen.
Searching is a movie that can be summed up in one word: clever. In about every respect you can think of, Searching demonstrates some real ingenuity and that includes how it utilizes modern-day technology. So often Hollywood references elements of everyday technology use in a clumsy that just reeks of "How do you do fellow kids?" instead of actually being familiar with technology people are enamored with, but that's something Searching, thankfully, avoids. This is actually one of the more realistic portraits I've seen in recent memory of how people behave when navigating a computer, I love how they make time for all these tiny relatable details in how David navigates the world wide web like David having to jump through all kinds of hoops to change a password or David's tendency to opens up new web pages in new tabs.
There's a real ingenuity in how real-life websites and computer functions are trotted out throughout the story, sometimes for occasional comedy (any of the times David is texting his daughter got a big laugh out of me due how true to life they are) but mostly for explorations of characters, particularly the exploration of how David becomes more and more desperate to find his daughter as the story progresses. That's a part of David's life that actor John Cho excels in as a performer, just as the depiction of technology echoes real-life perfectly, so too does Cho make David a distinctly realistic human being. Whether it's how he depicts David as a good-natured Dad at the start of the story or his powerful reflection of realistic torment for most of the plot, Cho is absolutely phenomenal here portraying the human heart pumping so much into Searching.
Like Cho, the script for Searching is also sublime and not just in its aforementioned ability to utilize technology cleverly instead of in a pandering way. This is one of those movies with a tightly constructed story where every detail, no matter how small, manages to pay off in the end and it's a thrill to watch how Searching masterfully pulls everything together as its story goes on. Even better, director Aneesh Chaganty makes sure the numerous plot turns, as well as the choice to tell this story through the prism of a computer screen, are not just here to be gimmicky substitutes for actually substantive storytelling. Instead, both of these unique elements greatly enhance the story of David looking for his missing daughter. Like the character of David himself, Searching knows how to properly use technology and such a deft command of how to use websites like Tumblr and Facebook right results in a brilliantly unpredictable feature that certainly feels like it was tailor-made for people and their technology habits in 2018, but whose outstandingly high quality will be timeless.
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