| Searching | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Aneesh Chaganty |
| Written by |
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| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Juan Sebastian Baron |
| Edited by |
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| Music by | Torin Borrowdale |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Screen Gems Stage 6 Films (throughSony Pictures Releasing) |
Release dates |
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Running time | 102 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $880,000[2] |
| Box office | $75.6 million[3][2] |
Searching is a 2018 Americanscreenlifemysterythriller film directed byAneesh Chaganty in his feature debut, written by Chaganty andSev Ohanian and produced byTimur Bekmambetov. Set almost entirely on computer screens andsmartphones, 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). This was the first mainstreamHollywood thriller headlined by an Asian-American actor.[4][5]
A co-production between the United States and Russia, the film premiered at theSundance Film Festival on January 21, 2018. It was released in a limited release on August 24, 2018, before opening wide on August 31, 2018 bySony Pictures Releasing. The film was a financial and critical success, grossing over $75 million worldwide against a $880,000 budget and receiving praise for its direction, acting, unique visual presentation, and unpredictable storyline. At theIndependent Spirit Awards, Cho was nominated forBest Male Lead. The film's success launched atitular film series including astandalone installment titledRun, and a follow-up titledMissing.[6]
David Kim lives inSan Jose, California with his daughter, Margot. His wife, Pamela, was diagnosed withlymphoma and died before Margot entered high school.
One night, Margot attempts to call David, but he is asleep. The following day, David is unable to contact Margot. Believing she is attending her piano lesson, David calls the instructor but is informed Margot cancelled her lessons six months prior. He discovers she pocketed and transferred $2,500 to a now-deletedVenmo account. He calls the police, and the case is assigned to Detective Rosemary Vick. Through her social media accounts, David learns Margot has become a loner since Pamela's death. Vick reports Margot made afake ID and shows traffic camera footage of her car outside the city, suggesting she may have run away.
Unconvinced, David discovers Margot had been using astreaming site called YouCast, and befriended a young woman named Hannah, under an anonymous username. Vick reports Hannah's innocence, having been sighted inPittsburgh at the time of the disappearance. From Margot'sTumblr account, David notices she frequently visited Barbosa Lake near the highway where she was last seen. He finds herPokémon keychain there, and the police discover her car in the lake, containing an envelope with the $2,500. A search party is arranged, but a storm slows the process.
After David has an altercation with a boy who claims to know where Margot is, Vick tells him he can no longer participate in the investigation. Undeterred, David visitsTMZ, which displays the crime scene photographs, and notices his brother Peter's jacket. He discovers text messages between Margot and Peter that suggest anincestuous relationship. Upon confrontation, Peter explains they were only smokingmarijuana and confiding in each other. He chastises David for being negligent towards Margot, who is still grieving Pamela's death. Vick calls David and tells him an ex-convict named Randy Cartoff confessed to raping and killing Margot before committingsuicide.
An empty-casket funeral is arranged for Margot. As David uploads photos to a funeral streaming site, he notices the website'sstock photograph features a picture of Hannah. Discovering she is astock model, he contacts her, and she reveals she does not know Margot and the police never called her. Talking to a police dispatcher, David learns Vick was not assigned to the case, but volunteered herself. He discovers she knew Cartoff through a volunteer program for ex-convicts. Reporting this to the sheriff, David confronts Vick, who is arrested at the funeral.
Vick agrees to confess, in exchange forleniency for her son, Robert. Having a crush on Margot, Robert used "Hannah’s" account to get close to her. Margot sent money to Robert's Venmo account, believing he was a working-class girl whose mother had cancer. Ashamed for lying, Robert wanted to return the money in person and followed her to Barbosa Lake to reveal himself. He surprised her by getting into her car, and she ran, with him accidentally pushing her off a cliff into a 50-foot-deepravine. Assuming the accident was fatal and could be perceived asmanslaughter or evenfirst-degree murder, Vick decided to cover up the incident, pushing the car into the lake andfabricating the fake ID evidence to make it look like Margot ran away. After David found the car, Vick turned Cartoff into thefall guy and staged his confession.
Vick says that Margot is still in the ravine, suggesting that even if she had survived the fall, she could not have lived five days without water. David tells the police to return to the ravine, remembering the storm on the third day of the search, which could have provided her with water. The rescue crew finds Margot severely injured but alive.
Two years later, Margot applies for college to major in piano. David tells her Pamela would have been proud of her. Margot changes her desktop picture from one of Pamela and her to the one David sent her of the two of them in the school hallway after the rescue, reflecting a closer relationship between them.
The original conception was an 8-minute short film. WhenAneesh Chaganty and Sev Ohanian pitched the concept to TheBazelevs Company, the latter suggested it could be expanded into a feature film. While Ohanian was open to the offer and saw its potential, Chaganty was hesitant, since he believed a feature film would stretch the concept and feel too gimmicky. But after coming up with the intro, they felt the film would work.[7] The character, Rosemary Vick, was named afterRosemary's Baby andThe Shield's characterVic Mackey.[8] ActorJohn Cho turned down the role of David Kim at first because he felt that the concept of a movie seen entirely through TV, phone and computer screens was not feasible.[9]
The film was shot on various devices. These includeGoPro, drone (unmanned aerial vehicle), news helicopters, minidv cameras,webcam, and even director Aneesh Chaganty'siPhone, which became the main camera.[7] The scenes between Cho's David Kim andDebra Messing's Rosemary Vick were all shot in one house, with Cho on one side of the house and Messing at the other.[9] Actress Michelle La described the filming process as a "logistical nightmare".[9]
Initially started as a joke, an alien invasion subplot was created by using snippets of news articles, Facebook comments, or hashtags and "fit into the timeline and main plot ofSearching without taking away from it."[10]
It took 13 days to film,[11] but it took about one and a half years to edit the movie.[12]
Cho also said in an interview that the production crew made him look older in the movie by drawing lines on his face since his character had a teenage daughter.[13]
The film had its world premiere at theSundance Film Festival on January 21, 2018, under the titleSearch.[14] Shortly after,Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions acquired distribution rights to the film for $5 million.[15] It was initially 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.[16][17]
It was screened at the28th Busan International Film Festival as part of 'Korean American Special Exhibition: Korean Diaspora' on 6 October 2023.[18]
Searching grossed $26 million in the United States and Canada, and $49.4 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $75.5 million.[3]
Searching debuted to $388,769 from nine theaters in its limited opening weekend, for a per-venue average of $43,197.[19] It expanded to 1,207 theaters on August 31, and was projected to gross $3 million over the weekend. It ended up making $6.1 million (including $7.6 million over the four-day Labor Day frame), finishing fourth at the box office.[20] In its second weekend of wide release, the film was added to an additional 802 theaters, and grossed $4.5 million, finishing fifth.[21] It then made another $3.2 million in its third week of wide release.[22]
On thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, 92% of 260 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.5/10. The website's consensus reads: "Searching's timely premise and original execution are further bolstered by well-rounded characters brought to life by a talented cast."[23]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 71 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.[24] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, whilePostTrak reported filmgoers gave it a 78% overall positive score.[20]
Variety's Peter Debruge called the film "so unique in its approach that Sundance can only program something of its kind once before the gimmick gets old."[25] Kate Erbland ofIndieWire gave the film a grade of "B+" and called it "a true storytelling feat, married with sharp editing that makes the entire effort not only seamless, but also wholly intuitive," also saying, "Aneesh Chaganty's drama transcends its gimmick, offering up a smart and refreshing spin on movies that literally play out on small screens."[26]Screen Rant's Chris Agar gave the film four out of five stars, and summed it up as "a suspenseful drama, buoyed by its innovative film making style and collection of strong performances by its leads." He added, "Even ifSearching didn't make effective use of its technology angle, the core story would still work due to Chaganty's script, which packs an emotional punch from its first moments and never holds back."[27]
Peter Travers ofRolling Stone gave the film four out of five stars and wrote "director Aneesh Chaganty, in an exceptional feature debut, does the impossible, building a high-voltage, white-knuckle thriller told almost exclusively through smartphones, laptop screens, browser windows and surveillance footage.Searching is a technical marvel with a beating heart at its core, which makes all the difference".[28] Aisha Harris ofThe New York Times wrote, "While a somewhat silly reveal in the final act feels ripped from aLaw & Order episode, the combination of clever concept reflecting the prevalence of screens in everyday life, and the pleasure of watching a typically underused Mr. Cho take on a meaty lead role makeSearching a satisfying psychological thriller."[29]
On August 14, 2019, a sequel was announced to be in development. Chaganty clarified that the story will not "follow the same characters or plot line as the original."[30] On January 13, 2021, it was announced that the first film's editors, Will Merrick and Nick Johnson, would write the screenplay for and direct the sequel, based on a treatment by Chaganty and Ohanian.[31]
