Searching

The obvious older movie to discuss after director Aneesh Chaganty’s second feature is his first feature, which is great because that’s also amazing!

Since he’s Indian and making thrillers, it’s easy to call him this generation’s M. Night Shamylan. However, The Sixth Sense  and Unbreakable  were FAR AND AWAY Shamylan’s two best movies, and Searching and Run are a better pair! Let’s discuss Searching in more depth.

John Cho, best known as “Harold” and first known to me as one of the MILF guys in American Pie, does a 180 (or a 2 Pi for those of us who love calculus) from those long-ago roles. Here he plays a young widowed father of an overachieving teenage daughter – to whom something bad happens. Or does it? Was whatever happened preplanned and/or voluntary?

I attended a Spirit Awards nominee screening for this film. That was after having already paid to watch it in the theater. Yes, it’s that terrific, but also I wanted to see the Q&A afterwards. Chaganty said he specifically wrote the role with John Cho in mind. I like Cho but that’s probably the first time anyone’s written a script specifically for him. He was certainly happy to have a part where the main character’s Asian ethnicity was not essential.

Except for maybe his character being a strict parent, LOL.

Good decision though – Cho was amazing! In fact the Spirit Awards nomination the film got was for Best Actor. I’m only sorry it didn’t become a huge hit that got a lot more nominations and elevated Cho to the A-list.

On the bright side I got this autograph after the Q&A.

Even more than the performances of Cho and Debra Messing (the only other performer with significant screen time), I loved the story. I am deeply intrigued by stories of missing people

and the journey of this father who has already lost one of the two most important people in his life and now might have lost the other one (and worse, might never find out one way or another if she’s gone) is harrowing.

Equally important to the film’s success is the claustrophobic tension caused by the storytelling approach. Although there is some news footage, almost everything happens on the protagonist David Kim’s computer screen, be it emails, video chats, YouTube, calendars, etc. This fairly novel approach works better than it did in the Unfriended movies (admittedly, I liked the first one), and far better than in that idiotic Modern Family episode in which all the evidence indicated Haley got pregnant and ran off to elope but she was really just sleeping in her room. 😠

I literally stopped watching the show after this episode, since two weeks earlier they’d given similarly ridiculous explanations as to why Mitch and Cam DIDN’T have a baby boy abandoned at their home.

I loved this film! Some feel COVID-19 will forever change Hollywood, as humungous blockbusters will be too risky to make. Entertainment Weekly had an astute observation that, after 40 years of ever-escalating budgets, Hollywood might have to scale down now and focus on story, character, etc.

Of course, it wasn’t just the money earned from Jaws and Star Wars that made Hollywood go crazy trying to churn out blockbusters.

Not just ancillary income either.

It was the ever increasing accessibility of film via TV/video/internet, as often times it takes a huge popcorn film to get customers to the theaters these days. Run is in fact a straight-to-Hulu film.

If movies like Searching and Run being the future means theater chains will go out of business, I say NOOOOOOOO! But if their being the future means movies will be that awesome, I say YEEEEESSSSSS!

Bottom Line: Completely gripping and absorbing.

Questions? Comments? Please share below.