By Luke Walker
In thinking about Searching, I found myself looking at it from two different perspectives: as a narrative of investigation, but also just as a film in and of itself. In approaching an analysis of Searching from these two different angles gave me a more full appreciation of the work. Obviously, due to the nature of the class, we look at these pieces as narratives of investigation. But I think giving it some grace and viewing the movie for what it is, as a film, is also useful in increasing enjoyment and appreciation of the film.
For starters, I quite enjoyed this movie on a personal level. I’m a fan of John Cho’s work, and he plays the lead role of David Kim here. I’m most familiar with his comedy films, particularly the Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle series. So, seeing him in this more serious and dramatic role was interesting and fun to me. That being said, I’m approaching this analysis from an objective perspective, and I don’t want my personal enjoyment of actors to change my argument. I figured it would be worth pointing out the “bias” of sorts that I have, as a John Cho fan.
With that out of the way, let’s look at Searching. I want to first look at this film from that narrative of investigation mindset. It is unique from other media that we’ve looked at in class in large part due to its very modern, and intentionally so, structure. The movie (released in 2018) is set in 2017 and follows the disappearance of a high school girl. Naturally, with the subject of a high school teen, the internet is almost a character itself in the movie. As an investigation narrative, the internet is crucial in Searching. It’s through information available online that the majority of the investigation is done.
The film is told entirely through screens, as if we’re viewing a laptop or cell phone screen and aren’t some sort of third person observer as is typical in movies. Because of this film style, in order for a movie to really exist, lot’s of the “investigation” in the film is done by David Kim, on his computer. This investigation is done pretty well actually, in the sense of clues left behind. There isn’t something out of the blue that shows up. All the connections between characters are shown, thinking here of Detective Vick being photographed with the man who made a fake confession to Margaret’s murder. In terms of fair play, this works well. David doesn’t really know anything about his child online that we the viewer don’t know or can’t quickly assume. There isn’t any secret information hidden that made the end of the film feel “deus ex machina”. The resolution feels plausible.
However, the process by which we get there I have issues with. It just doesn’t make much sense. If there’s a criminal investigation going on, they have a team doing that work. The fact that so much information is found out from the dad – including some people no longer being viewed as suspects – just doesn’t feel very realistic. No police investigation would allow a father to be the chief researcher on the case. The rebuttal to this of course is that Detective Vick isn’t actually trying to solve the case and is planting a false narrative. However, a high profile teen murder investigation like this one – that has gone viral on Twitter and other social media platforms – would have many more people than one lead detective in the room. There would be more checks to make sure all stones are unturned.
That being said, I don’t think this issue impacted my enjoyment of the film very much, if at all. There were really strong acting performances across the board. One that stood out to me was Sara Sohn as Pamella Kim. The mom of Margot and wife of David, her death from cancer is critical to the film, and occurs early on. But in the short screen time she has, she does a great job of creating a picture of a loving mother, who’s loss would be so incredibly brutal to a family. Of course, John Cho is excellent as David Kim. I already mentioned my familiarity with his comic work, but in this serious role he plays a very convincing part. His sudden short temper and snaps of unger as he searches for his daughter are truly heartbreaking. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how the style of the film impacted my enjoyment. Everything is told through screens, and it made for a very unique viewing experience. I’m not sure if I’d like to watch a lot of films in this style, it might get old quickly (the film’s original conception as a simple short film shows that worry I think). That notwithstanding, the style is intriguing and not something I’ve really seen before.
Searching is a unique film. It makes use of the internet and its style as a “screen-shared” movie is unlike anything that we’ve looked at in this class. And, while there is an issue of believability within David’s involvement as an investigator, strong acting performances and adherence to fair play principles kept this film one that was well worth my hour and forty-two minutes.
Intermittent Mechanism 