REVIEW: Searching goes looking for a new kind of movie thriller, and finds it in a dark place online

DON’T make the mistake of seeing Searching safe in the knowledge you have seen it all before. This unusually gripping movie deploys a powerful secret weapon that will draw you in, grind you down and get you worried.

FEEL free to come at Searching any way you please.

Whether it be as a nifty whodunit thriller, or as a nagging where-is-she? crime procedural.

Just don’t make the mistake of attending safe in the knowledge you have seen it all before.

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The powerful secret weapon deployed by this unusually gripping experience is one of perspective.

The entire running time of Searching is seen through the same virtual windows with which so many of us now view the world today: via smartphones, webcams, social media posts, chat rooms, IM apps and viral video clips.

Debra Messing and John Cho in Searching. Picture: Sony Pictures

John Cho in a scene from film SearchingSony Pictures

Once upon a time, a movie like this might have transpired in dive bars, back alleys and rundown houses. Now it is all happening on home pages, message panes and live streams.

That Searching is about to elicit just as much atmosphere, angst and intrigue from its all-digital setting is nothing short of remarkable, and in no way a gimmick.

A tension-riddled story tracks the efforts of a worried father to find his absent daughter before authorities switch the handling of her case from Missing Persons to Homicide.

David (John Cho) assumes — wrongly, as it turns out — that he is closer to his only child Margot (Michelle La) than the average parent.

John Cho as the worried father whose daughter goes missing in Searching. Picture: Sony Pictures

In his mind, the lines of communication had been wider open than ever in the days leading up to her disappearance. In fact, David was the last person Margot tried to contact before her phone stopping pinging.

However, the more David pursues traditional lines of inquiry by talking to those who know Margot, he realises he may not know her that well at all.

So with the police hitting dead ends everywhere, the devastated dad scrounges and scours every hard drive and handset he can find for that one elusive vital clue.

The mystery unfolds with the same jagged bursts of activity and sudden sharp pauses that are the hallmarks of modern online communication.

John Cho looking for the elusive clue to his daughter’s disappearance.

Joseph Lee and John Cho in Searching. Picture: Elizabeth Kitchens/Sony Pictures via AP

There will be plenty of obvious suspects (including David, when the hashtag #thedaddidit goes viral for a while) and surprise twists.

There will not be a moment where your mind is not racing in tandem with David’s as time begins running out.

While Searching’s innovative and highly efficient visual structure does impress, it is the screenplay’s efficiency in playing upon our deepest fears of today’s connected world that truly impacts: drawing you in, grinding you down and getting you worried.

SEARCHING (M)

Rating: Three and a half stars (3.5 out of 5)

Director: Aneesh Chaganty (feature debut)

Starring: John Cho, Debra Messing, Joseph Lee, Michelle La, Sara Sohn.

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