John Cho as David Kim in the film's poster
Searching is a 2018 mystery/thriller film about a father who goes through his missing teenage daughter’s laptop in search of her whereabouts. The unique aspect of this film is that the entire experience is presented from the perspective of a computer screen, whether it is that of the father’s computer, his daughter’s laptop, their smartphones, a television, or even security cameras. It takes a strictly digital approach to convey the story. If it had to be related to any existing genre, it could be considered a form of found footage. This analysis is going to contain spoilers, so if you have not seen the film, watch it before continuing.
Michelle La as Margot Kim (left), and John Cho as David Kim (right)
David Kim is a single father to Margot, his teenage daughter. Together, nothing really seems to be out of the ordinary, until she goes missing one night. She leaves behind one very important piece of evidence: her laptop. David hires a private investigator to look into the case but grows suspicious when she is not found after forty-eight hours. This is when something sinister becomes revealed. Due to a lack of progress, he investigates himself.
Upon initially hearing the concept, it may seem as though an audience would lose interest fairly quickly while viewing a man interact with several computer windows for around two hours, but it surprisingly keeps you on the edge of your seat. Similar to the panic that the main character is going through while rummaging through a technological nightmare, we as the viewer get to witness this from the same point of view, which is something that audiences rarely get to experience.
Debra Messing as Detective Vick (left), and John Cho as David Kim (right)
From a script writing perspective, this must have been a very complex undertaking to write considering the unusual medium of the film. While it can be restricting, it also opens doors for news ways to tell the story. The screenplay allows for some touching emotion and quite elaborate character development between the father and his daughter without the use of that much dialogue. Instead of silence, we get a more deliberate visual cue: text in the context of the devices that we all use on a daily basis. This is mostly surrounding the relationship they had with David’s deceased spouse. This in a sense connects the two of them, because you can notice an apparent absence in their lives.
John Cho as David Kim
Without hearing any dialogue, much of the communication is done through text messaging and emails. While being quite literal in its presentation, it sheds light on the lack of emotion that exists between two people communicating digitally. We cannot necessarily interpret the distinction between happiness and sadness, or identify sarcasm as easily. Of course, emojis can be used to supplement basic text, but the principle generally applies. Knowing this about digital communication, and how difficult it must be to incorporate the essential emotion necessary to drive the characters, what are the advantages to using this approach to tell this story? Well, seeing the actual conversation take place from one side allows for the viewer to recognize the specific nuances of how the messages are typed, and what is deleted. We get a glimpse into the mind of the father while he is writing and get to see what is going through his mind as he revises his messages before sending them. This would not be possible in a traditional medium.
John Cho as David Kim
Besides focusing on the relationship between a father and daughter, this film also ends up revealing deceit and selfishness from certain characters whom we thought had good intentions. The story tends to be a bit of a roller coaster, containing many unexpected plot twists, further adding suspense and incentive to keep watching. To add structure and simultaneously incorporate the computer's user interface, the film uses the start up, login, logout, and shut down actions as a method to help keep the audience on track, and add structure to the beginning, middle, and end.
John Cho as David Kim standing with officers at the crime scene
Additional conflict is introduced when David becomes a suspect in his own daughter’s disappearance. As the audience, we find ourselves on David’s side, constantly searching for answers to this devastating problem. We witness extreme denial happening with David’s character, as he repeatedly claims that Margot is not dead. One can only imagine the mental trauma that comes from going through a situation like this.
John Cho as David Kim
Upon reaching the resolution of the story, when Margot is found barely alive in the bottom of a cliff, the satisfaction comes from realizing that if it were not for David’s perseverance and unconditional love for his daughter, he would not have found her in time to be alive. The film also ends on a very positive and heartwarming note, relating to the tension shown at the beginning between David and Margot, and how her mother would have been proud of her. It is also interesting to see that even though we suspected Margot’s supposed misbehavior resulted in her disappearance, we see that it was because she had good intentions for another person, and that the situation unfolded due to an irrelevant and unrelated pursuit. Creatively speaking, changing the desktop wallpaper to a photo of them in the hospital after she was rescued, and then shutting down the computer really ties everything together nicely.
John Cho as David Kim at the crime scene
It is interesting to consider the versatility of this format, and whether or not it will be obsolete in the future. Because technology is changing so rapidly, it seems impossible to predict the future of this method of filmmaking. However, it is a breath of fresh air to bring a different approach to the thriller genre and inspire other directors to possibly rethink their own ideas. It is by no means an easy task to tell a story this way, which is probably why we have not seen as many.
In general, the risk taken by the filmmakers to think outside of the box and utilize this method of storytelling really paid off for this film. It adds an additional dimension not only to the intensity of the genre, but also has the potential to be applicable to many other script formats.
In general, the risk taken by the filmmakers to think outside of the box and utilize this method of storytelling really paid off for this film. It adds an additional dimension not only to the intensity of the genre, but also has the potential to be applicable to many other script formats.
Written by: Dylan Delaney
