Searching (film)

Searching
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Aneesh Chaganty
Written by	Aneesh Chaganty Sev Ohanian
Produced by	Timur Bekmambetov Sev Ohanian Natalie Qasabian Adam Sidman
Starring	John Cho Debra Messing
Cinematography	Juan Sebastian Baron
Edited by	Nick Johnson Will Merrick
Music by	Torin Borrowdale
Production companies	Bazelevs Company Screen Gems Stage 6 Films
Distributed by	Sony Pictures Releasing
Release dates	January 21, 2018 (2018-01-21) (Sundance) August 24, 2018 (2018-08-24) (United States)
Running time	102 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$4.3 million

Searching is a 2018 American thriller film directed by Aneesh Chaganty and written by Chaganty and Sev Ohanian. Shot from the point-of-view of smartphones and computer screens, the film follows a father (John Cho) trying to find his missing 16-year-old daughter (Michelle La) with the help of a police detective (Debra Messing). It is noted as the first mainstream Hollywood thriller headlined by an Asian-American actor.

The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2018 and was released in the United States on August 24, 2018, by Screen Gems. It received positive reviews from critics, who praised Cho's performance.

Plot

David Kim looks through past videos of his daughter Margot and his late wife Pamela he saved. After Pamela died of cancer, David and Margot's relationship grew more distant, with David having Margot attend piano lessons she no longer enjoys. Margot leaves to be with her study group for the night and does not respond to her father's call, something that is normal for the two since Pamela's death. While David sleeps, Margot calls him three times. David discovers the missed calls the next morning but brushes off his concerns, initially assuming that she is attending one of her piano lessons. However, her piano instructor says she canceled lessons six months ago. David then discovers that she put the money he gave her for the lessons into a bank account for herself, and transferred $2,500 to a now deleted Venmo account. He contacts his brother Peter asking about Margot's whereabouts; Peter assumes Margot may simply be messing around since it is almost summer and reminds David that he had done the same when he was younger.

The next day, David calls Margot's childhood friend Isaac's mother. She assumes that Margot and Isaac had gone out camping, but Isaac calls David to him that he did invite Margot to go camping but she never showed up. David then decides to report her as missing. His case is assigned to Detective Rosemary Vick. Vick asks him to do some investigation himself on Margot's behavior while she and her team help him out. David contacts all of Margot's friends after successfully logging into her Facebook and is surprised to find that Margot has become a loner since her mother's death. He then discovers that the study group Margot was in said she left early, contradicting Margot's statement that she will be staying there late into the night. After Vick finds that Margot made a fake ID for herself, she suggests to David that his daughter may have simply stolen his money and ran away. Despondent, David admits to Vick that he knew nothing about his daughter, and Vick comforts him by relaying that her own son had scammed her neighbor by asking for $25 for a fake charity. David finds Margot had a YouCast account, where she is more open about her emotions to her viewers than to her father, and reveals she has taken up photography as a hobby. Scrolling through her followers, David finds that Margot frequently spoke to a user called fish_n_chips. fish_n_chips mentions that her mother is battling cancer, as Margot's mother had. Through her various social media accounts, David finds that Margot frequently visited Barbosa Lake and contacts Vick about his discovery.

A search crew is sent to Barbosa Lake, where they discover Margot's car underwater and the $2,500 untouched inside it. Shortly after, David sees one of Margot's classmates mocking her disappearance online and attacks the student at a theater, resulting in Vick blocking him out of the investigation. Undeterred, David looks through crime scene photos and finds an image of Peter's jacket in Margot's car. He then discovers odd text message interactions between Peter and Margot that suggest there was a sexual relationship between the two. David visits Peter and sets up cameras to try and catch Peter admitting to killing Margot. After a fight breaks out between the two, Peter tells David that the texts were actually about smoking marijuana with each other, and accuses David of being an incompetent father for failing to converse with Margot about her life. Immediately after, Vick calls David to tell him that a former convict named Randy Cartoff confessed in an online video that he sexually assaulted and killed Margot, and committed suicide immediately after. David then uploads videos of Margot in memory of her on a website called MemorialOne. However, he coincidentally discovers an advertisement picture on MemorialOne that matches fish_n_chips' profile picture. A reverse picture lookup leads him to discover that the picture is a stock photo. He contacts the model of the photo, who doesn't know about Margot or the case and David believes that the real fish_n_chips may be involved with Margot's death. After trying to call Vick, David accidentally learns that she had actually volunteered for the case, and suspiciously searches for more information about her. David quickly finds an article that features Vick helping felons with rehabilitation and sees an image of her with Cartoff. Believing that Vick is involved with Margot's death, David contacts the police and drives to Margot's funeral service after seeing the detective at the live stream. Vick surrenders to the police after they arrive with David.

Vick confesses that she was involved and is arrested. While being interrogated, Vick reveals that her son, Robert, had a longtime crush on Margot and stalked her online for years before engaging her with the fish_n_chips account. After befriending her using the knowledge he gained from stalking Margot, Robert greedily asked her for $2,500, claiming it was for his mother's cancer treatments. After Margot followed through with the donation, Robert began to feel guilty about taking the money and decided to give it back in cash. Fearing how Margot would react if he revealed himself to be fish_n_chips in public, he followed her late at night to Barbosa Lake where Margot was going after study group to get high. Robert entered Margot's car without warning and she attacked him in fear. Afraid for her life, Margot called her father and ran away from Robert with no one to help her. Robert refused to give up his pursuit, and after Margot turned back to fight him again, he accidentally shoved her into a ravine. Believing he had killed Margot, Robert despondently called his mother for help. To protect Robert, Vick shoved Margot's car into the lake so no one would find it, and voluntarily joined the investigation to make up details (such as Margot's fake ID) to trick everyone into believing that Margot had simply run away. After David had tracked down Barbosa Lake and found the car himself, Vick deliberately lead the search teams away from Margot's real location at the ravine, and then forced Cartoff to falsely admit to killing Margot before murdering him in a manner that suggested suicide. Vick ends her confession by claiming that she made her decisions based on her belief that Margot couldn't have survived the fall, and even if she survived the initial impact, she was now without water for 5 days. However, David notes that a recent rainstorm meant she had only been without water for two days. David and the police rush to the ravine where Margot was pushed, where she is found alive and taken to the hospital.

Sometime later, Margot is shown to have applied for college to major in piano, with her status as pending. Photos and text conversations between Margot and her dad show that the two have reconciled, and she has become more open at both home and school. The film ends with Margot receiving a final message, declaring that her father is proud of her, and her mother would be too.

Cast

• John Cho as David Kim, Pamela Nam's husband and Margot’s father
• Michelle La as Margot Kim, the daughter of David and Pamela Kim
  • Kya Dawn Lau as 9 year old Margot Kim
  • Megan Liu as 7 year old Margot Kim
  • Alex Jayne Go as 5 year old Margot Kim
• Debra Messing as Detective Rosemary Vick, the detective assigned to Margot's case
• Sara Sohn as Pamela Nam Kim, David’s wife and Margot’s mother
• Joseph Lee as Peter Kim, David's pot smoking brother
• Steven Michael Eich as Robert Vick, Detective Vick's special-needs son
• Ric Sarabia as Randy Cartoff
• Sean O'Bryan as Radio Jockey

Release

The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2018. Shortly after, Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions acquired distribution rights to the film. It was scheduled to be released on August 3, 2018, but was pushed back to a limited release on August 24, 2018 before opening wide on August 31, 2018.

Searching debuted to $388,769 from nine theaters in its opening limited weekend, for a per-venue average of $43,197. It will expand to 1,200 theaters on August 31, and is projected to gross $3 million over the weekend.

Critical response

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film received an approval rating of 91% based on 120 reviews, with an average rating of 7.6/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Searching's timely premise and original execution are further bolstered by well-rounded characters brought to life by a talented cast." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 72 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

Accolades

• 2018: Alfred Sloan Prize
• 2018: NEXT Audience Award at 2018 Sundance Film Festival
• 2018: Sundance Institute / Amazon Studios Narrative Producer Award to producer Sev Ohanian at 2018 Sundance Film Festival

See also

• Hardcore
• Unfriended

External links

• Official website
• Searching at IMDb