Aneesh Chaganty’s ‘Searching’ isn’t your traditional scary movie, with a masked killer roaming around on a rampage, but it’s mystery is plenty scary and invokes some solid emotions as a father tries to locate his missing daughter.
According to the synopsis:
“David Kim becomes desperate when his 16-year-old daughter Margot disappears and an immediate police investigation leads nowhere. He soon decides to search the one place that no one else has — Margot’s laptop. Hoping to trace her digital footprints, David contacts her friends and looks at photos and videos for any possible clues to her whereabouts”
John Cho plays David Kim, a father who is still grieving the loss of his wife to cancer and trying to forge a connection with his daughter, Margot (Alex Jayne Go), whose secrets come to the surface as Kim conducts his own investigation to try and track her down.
Kim’s relationship with lead detective Rosemary Vick (Debra Messing) is a nice compliment that helps add another arc to the characters as the movie progresses.
Armed with plenty of solid twists, a fresh new approach, solid acting, and plenty of dips and crests during it’s emotional roller coaster, Searching may be the best thriller/mystery of 2018.
Kudos to Chaganty, who took a new approach, really introduced something different (while many other films promote taking a “fresh” approach, only to offer more of the same), and brilliantly weaved the audience through a gripping story that never loses interest.
