Review: Searching
by Lynn Lee
At first glance, Searching has all the marks of a conventional “missing child” thriller. Single dad’s teenage daughter goes awol, leaving signs to fear the worst; police investigation reaches dead end or obviously-wrong conclusion; dad realizes there was too much about his daughter he didn’t know but doggedly solves the mystery on his own after several red herrings and, of course, a shocking twist. Slightly condensed, the entire film could fit into a one-hour TV crime procedural. As it is, the movie clocks in at a lean, tightly paced 102 minutes and hits all the requisite plot beats with impressive efficiency.
And yet, there is something different about Searching that distinguishes it from other examples of the genre. Two somethings, actually...