Searching Movie Review

Searching is a 2018 thriller directed by Aneesh Chaganty and starring John Cho and Debra Messing.

The film begins with a man called David(Cho) who is a widower. His wife died of cancer a few years ago. He has a teenage daughter called Margot. She doesn't spend much time with him since her mother died. They have drifted apart. David is on his computer looking at videos and pictures of his wife and daughter. Margot tells him that she going out to a friend's house for a study group. She calls him late that night, but he is asleep and he doesn't hear the call. The next day, he calls her back, but it goes straight to voicemail. He messages her but gets no reply either. He calls her piano teacher to see if she is there, but he is told that Margot cancelled her lessons months ago. David tries to log into her social media accounts. He realises that he doesn't know any of her friends.

David tries to find her friends numbers and he speaks to the mother of one of them. She says that Margot was supposed to go on a camping trip  with her son and that she is probably with him. It turns out that Margot didn't show up. David calls the police. He is called by a detective called Rosemary Vick. David logs into Margot's Facebook and he calls all of the friends he finds there. He discovers that a lot of them didn't really know her. She was a bit of a loner. He talks to the girl who was holding the study group and she says that Margot was at the study group until 9 o'clock. The police have CCTV footage and they see Margot in her car. She was driving away on a road out of town. She was saving the money that she was supposed to be spending on her piano classes. She took out $2,500.
David finds a friend of hers called Derek. He is a bad guy. He tells David that he was at a concert the night Margot disappeared. Rosemary discovers a fake driving licence with a different name on it.
She thinks that maybe Margot ran away.

David sees videos that Margot made. She was talking to some person called fish n chips. The person says that they are a waitress. David finds a picture of a lake where Margot used to go. He finds out that she travelled there. Her car is found by the lake. Margot isn't there. There is blood inside it.
The money is discovered inside the car. The case is on the news and  everyone seems to want to be a part of it. Derek gets beaten up by David when he puts up stuff on his Facebook page about Margot.
Rosemary tells David that he can't be a part of the investigation any longer. David suspects his brother but he is wrong. Rosemary tells David that she has found the guy responsible. The guy kills himself so that seems to be the end of that. David sees a familiar face on a funeral website. It belongs to fish n chips, the person that Margot was chatting with. It turns out that the picture belongs to a model and not the person.

David realises that something is not making sense. He finds out that Rosemary volunteered the take the case. She knew the suspect who confessed. She is dodgy. David goes to a memorial for Margot and she is there. He brings the cops with him and she is arrested. She confesses that she tried to cover up the crime because of her son. She says that he killed Margot by pushing her into a ravine and that he was fish n chips. He liked Margot and he pretended to be someone else. Margot withdrew the money to give to fish n chips because  he said that his mother was sick. He followed Margot to the lake and she got freaked out. He pushed her and she fell..Rosemary told him that she would take care of it. She manufactured information and she used a convict to confess. She takes the heat for her son. It looks bad for Margot as they go and search for her. It turns out that there was a storm and there would be enough water for her to live on for a few days. She is alive. She survives her ordeal.

I really enjoyed this film. It is unusual as we see everything from the point of view of cameras, smart phones and computers. I liked the story and I thought that the cast were good. I thought that this was a story about abduction at first, then a murder story, but it turned out to be a different story. The only thing that I would complain about is the happy ending. It seemed unbelievable that she would have survived all of that. It just seemed too neat. I would have preferred a more realistic ending. Other than that, there is nothing bad about this. I found it enjoyable and I definitely recommend it. I will give it a 7/10.