Searching, written and directed by Aneesh Chaganty - 8 out of 10

Searching, written and directed by Aneesh Chaganty

8 out of 10

Although the idea of this motion picture is very familiar, the approach is very modern and then the development of the plot offers surprises.

What is new, never done before - or so it looks for yours truly - is the way the disappearance is investigated.

Margot Kim, a sixteen year old girl is missing and her father would use all the technology that is available in this day and age to try to find her.

David Kim, a single parent, widower, would go online and try to identify the suspect in this case where his daughter seems to have vanished.

He enters her Facebook profile, gmail accounts, a site where she has posted videos, everything he could potentially use.

It is extraordinary how this film uses all manner of new technology, from the sites mentioned, social media, to cameras – the father installs some in his own house in an effort to record a confession from a suspect he has indoors.

David Kim is very methodical and proves to be very efficient, remarkable if amateur detective.

He takes the friends from Facebook and tries to talk to them, establishing though that his daughter had actually very few, if any people close to her…indeed there are some sad images with her eating alone in the cafeteria.

Some of the online contacts may have important information and the suffering parent makes a chart, with the details of the colleagues who might have been involved in a kidnapping.

Mr. Kim asks them when they last saw his daughter, for any more aspects they may have and crucially where were they at the time when Margot went missing.

It is established that she took the car out of the city, and using the camera footage from various places, they find a spot on the road where she disappeared so to say.

One of the boys becomes very offensive regarding Margot, her intimacy, a rude, abominable attitude.

David Kim confronts the young man at a cinema, pushing and entering an altercation with the vicious individual, breaking his jaw eventually.

One of the aspects that might lead to the elucidation of the mystery is following and reading the comments of various online characters.

After the beating of the ruthless man, all sorts of feedback came streaming online, some accusing the violent parent and others supporting him:

If my daughter was missing and the ass hole acted like that, I would do more damage…

A woman calls the desperate father and says she is detective Vick and she was assigned to this case.

Like for all other characters involved in the investigation, his child’s life, David Kim googles for information on this person.

She seems to be a dedicated, brave and honorable officer, doing work for the community in her free time, initiating a project of construction with former inmates – this would prove to be valuable towards the end.

Looking at the multitude of photographs that his daughter has posted online, the parent understands she must have gone to a lake that is very prominent in her postings.

Indeed, the car is found, submerged in the lake and from here on, they ask for volunteers to help with the search party.

Perusing through the internet conversations, David finds some troubling details in the exchange between the girl and his own brother, Peter, with reference to “last night”, it was great, etc.

The conclusion the audience draws and the terrified father would pursue is that there was something close to incest.

Again, there is technology to use, cameras are placed in the home, where Peter would confess and therefore there would be evidence to use in court for an indictment and then a sentence.

The confrontation is heated, at one point David jumps on his sibling with the apparent intention of extracting revenge and killing him.

Only the dark, obscure detail turns out to be the marijuana they had smoked together, which although rather incriminating, it excludes coitus and more importantly, the implication in a possible murder of the irresponsible uncle.

David Kim follows another lead, discovered in the videos posted by Margot, where someone using the pseudonym of fish and chips becomes very intimate with the innocent girl.

The trail of $ 2,500 transferred by Margot has to be followed; only the detective says that it was sent to herself and generally, this kind of behavior is associated with drug dealing and other illegal activities.

However, there is something strange about Detective Vick.

This is where the note stops, to avoid spoiler alerts and to conclude that the film is interesting and innovative.