Searching

Searching

Searching movie poster

When a teenage girl goes missing, her distraught father goes searching for her. The film's title is well chosen - when most of us encounter the word "searching", it's because we're trying to find files on our computer, and Searching's central conceit is that it's told entirely through computer screen shots. As such, it's a whole new twist on the "found footage" genre, as it occurs not through archival tape, but in real time.

After losing his 44 year old wife to cancer, single father David Kim wakes up one morning to discover his daughter never came home the previous night. When he's unable to reach her anywhere he finally calls the police. However, when he begins looking through his daughter's social media accounts, he begins to realize there's a lot he didn't know about his little girl.

Searching is far more entertaining than you'd expect from a film primarily made up of Google searches and Facetime calls. Kind of like a computer nerd version of Taken.

The Good: 

• enough plot twists to keep you on your toes

The Bad:

• not everyone's going to be able to enjoy a film where no two people are ever in the same room

Stuff to watch for:

• numerous Internet in-jokes and references; watch all the nearby posts and comments on screen

Pairing: hot tea

The Verdict:
**** out of *****