Review of "Searching" by The Headless Critic

Searching – 2018
Production by: Bazelevs Production
Distribution by: Sony Pictures, Stage 6 Films, Screens Gems



A close and loving family of three is heavily affected with the loss of one. After surviving the loss of his wife Pamela (Sara Sohn) to cancer two years ago, David Kim (John Cho) has just lost his daughter, literally. Sixteen year old Margot Kim (Michelle La) is missing. As a father tries to find his daughter he realizes “he can’t find out where she is until he finds out who she is” but he will never stop Searching…

The first feature film from writing and directing duo Aneesh Chaganty and Sev Ohanian is a mystery missing person thriller with a screen of windows full of possibilities. The search is on not only to find a missing teenage girl but to figure out just who she has become in the last two years since her mother’s death. It’s all told through a virus amount of pop-up windows on a distraught father’s computer screen.

John Cho, Michelle La and Sara Sohn really feel like a broken family to the actors and directors credit. You feel the reserved panic from the father (Cho). You experience just how lost Margot really is without touching movie cliché’s. Debra Messing adds that needed element of torn police Detective Vick that’s needed to legitimize the investigation and her role in finding Margot.

At times this missing person investigation movie felt like a theatrical version of the missing person and murder mysteries that are so popular on tv right now, acted out for film, step by step. It gripped me emotionally doing something few films before it have accomplished. It’s also a story told through windows on a computer screen which is a new way of storytelling I don’t particularly care for. That type of movie making is done brilliantly here in a modern way. I just have a personal distaste for it. Those who don’t mind it will probably enjoy Searching even more.

Available Now in Select Theaters

3 out of 5 Headless Critics