Aneesh Chaganty's simple yet revolutionary idea of approaching a long feature film through the lens of Apple products and a computer screen has panned out rather brilliantly. The young director, with his poignant thriller, has our attention. Searching is a movie that speaks to the audience through a computer screen. Talk about a whole new digital world, Chaganty brings the essence of a thriller through the basic cameras of Apple products.

The story is pretty basic. David Kim (played by John Cho, you know him from Star Trek), is a flourishing Silicon Valley engineer with a lovely nuclear family comprising his wife Pamela Nam Kim (Sara Sohn) and daughter Margot Kim (Michelle La). After being diagnosed with cancer and the eventual death that follows Pamela, things aren't the same anymore for the Kim family. Things get rather odd and daunting when one night Margot goes missing. What starts as a cute documentation of the life of the Kim family soon turns into a social media frenzy when things start to unravel as David, along with his assigned detective, Rosemary Vick (played by Debra Messing), try to unravel the truth behind Margot's MIA status.

Sure, the idea of the twists and thrills aren't as shocking and dreadful due to its predictable nature. Especially for those who have lived and thrived in intense thriller movies, every step in the film has a lot of speculative scenes. It basically goes like this, he spots something in the computer, the next thing you know, the Silicon Valley whiz is taking the clue to his assigned detective (who is a celebrated hero, by the way) so there is no dead end in between scenes.

The movie's interface, till its end, is a creative masterpiece. The film starts with the Kim family documenting their lives on their computer cameras and mobile phone cameras. The initial few minutes of the film play video montages of the simpleton lives of the Korean family. That soon changes to FaceTiming after Mrs Kim passes away. The father-daughter communicate through FaceTime and text messages. Throughout the movie, the computer template is followed. In fact, in a specific scene where he has a dialogue with his brother, David Kim installs CCTV cameras in the room, again, to document the conversation that could be shown as proof. The idea of letting a computer screen communicate an entire movie's premise makes Searching worthwhile.

Yes, the idea does seem to be inspired by Cloverfield with respect to the method and technique by which it is presented. But its way more than that. In fact, the compelling tale told through the computer screen as template ensures that attention stay on the screen and nowhere else. It's a masterpiece. Mind you, this was supposed to be a 7-minute short film which managed to stretch out to an hour and half long feature film. Chaganty has style and spunk with respect to storytelling and the film affirms his ingenuity towards filmmaking.

In terms of acting, emotions do lack because the only time the actors are captured by the cameras is when they are FaceTiming or being recorded by the media. Even the strong sentiment of David Kim and the thought of losing his daughter is not delivered to the point of overwhelming the audience. However, despite that, the actors, John Cho and Debra Messing, have played their roles well. Perhaps the lack of overt sentiments is something the filmmaker didn't require in his film, considering how it is being said through the eyes of a digital space.

Yay!

- The setting of the plot

- The camera-work with its unusual but creative frame

- The mindblowing editing

- Good performances by John Cho and Debra Messing

- The commendable depiction of the contemporary digital life

Nay!

- The slow pace with which the movie goes

- The slight predictability of the plot

Final thoughts

Searching will keep you hooked, right till the end. The film stays true to its genre, Thriller, and manages to incite a few thrillers here and there. The computer graphics bring about impressive editing skills. Believe us when we say this, you won't be let down by the film's visuals or story unless your mind is occupied by presumptuousness of watching too many thriller movies.

Rating:
4 out of 5

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 29, 2018 07:54 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).