Searching Dvd

Searching is a 2018 American mystery thriller film directed by Aneesh Chaganty in his feature debut and written by Chaganty and Sev Ohanian. Set entirely on computer screens and smartphones, the film follows a father (John Cho) trying to find his missing 16-year-old daughter (Michelle La) with the help of a police detective (Debra Messing). It is the first mainstream Hollywood thriller headlined by an Asian-American actor.

The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2018, and was theatrically released in the United States on August 31, 2018, by Screen Gems. The film was a financial and critical success, grossing over $75 million worldwide against a $880,000 budget and receiving praise for its direction, acting, unique visual presentation and unpredictable storyline. At the Independent Spirit Awards, Cho was nominated for Best Male Lead.

Plot

In San Jose, California, David Kim is shown looking through photographs and videos of his daughter Margot and his wife Pamela at various times in Margot’s childhood as a happy, close family. Pamela was diagnosed with lymphoma and died right before Margot enters high school.

One night, Margot goes to a friend’s house for a study group. While David sleeps, Margot attempts to call him three times. The next morning, David is unable to find Margot but assumes she has risen early to go to school. Later, he calls Margot’s piano instructor but is informed that Margot cancelled her lessons six months prior. David discovers that Margot was pocketing the money for the lessons and transferred it to a now-deleted Venmo account. Realizing that Margot is missing, David calls the police. The case is assigned to Detective Rosemary Vick, who asks for information about Margot’s personality and friendships. David manages to access Margot’s accounts, including Facebook, and speaks to her contacts, but he learns that Margot had become a loner since Pamela’s death. Vick calls to report that Margot made a fake ID for herself and shows traffic-camera footage of Margot’s car at a highway junction outside of the city, suggesting that Margot may have run away.

David, unconvinced, discovers that Margot was using a live streaming site called YouCast and that she frequently spoke to a young woman called “fish_n_chips”. Vick investigates this and reports back that fish_n_chips is innocent, having been sighted in Pittsburgh at the time of the disappearance. From Margot’s Tumblr account, David finds that Margot frequently visited Barbosa Lake, which is near the highway juncture where she was last seen. He drives to the lake and finds Margot’s Pokémon keychain on the ground. The police arrive and locate Margot’s car underwater. Margot’s body is not inside, but there is an envelope in the glove box containing the piano lesson money. A sweep of the surrounding area is conducted by the police and volunteers, but a thunderstorm slows progress. Margot’s body is not found.

When a boy who knew Margot claims online that she is with him, David tracks him down and attacks him, whereupon Vick forbids him to further investigate her disappearance. However, David visits a site which displays the crime-scene photographs and notices his brother Peter’s jacket inside. He then discovers text messages between Margot and Peter, hinting that they might have had an incestuous relationship. When David confronts Peter at his house, the latter explains that they were only smoking marijuana and confiding in each other, and he chastises David for failing to notice that his daughter was depressed. During this confrontation, Vick calls David. She tells him that an ex-convict named Randy Cartoff confessed in an online video to raping and killing Margot, then committed suicide.

An empty-casket funeral is arranged for Margot. As David is uploading photographs to a funeral streaming service, he notices that the website’s stock photograph features the same woman as fish_n_chips’s profile-picture. David contacts the woman and discovers that she is a stock model who does not know Margot and that the police never called her. Attempting to report this to Vick, David instead reaches a dispatcher who reveals that Vick volunteered to take the case and was not assigned to it as she claimed. David googles Vick and finds that she knew Cartoff through a volunteer program for ex-convicts. He reports this to the sheriff, and at the funeral, Vick is arrested.

A few days later, Vick has agreed to confess to murder and other crimes in exchange for leniency for her son Robert, who was using the online identity fish_n_chips to get close to Margot because he had a crush on her. Margot sent Robert the money thinking that Robert was a working-class girl whose mother was in the hospital. Robert felt guilty and wanted to give the money back; he decided to do so at the lake. When Robert surprised Margot by getting into her car while she was smoking marijuana, she ran, and in the ensuing scuffle Robert accidentally pushed Margot off a cliff into a 50-foot-deep ravine. Vick decided to cover up the incident, pushing the car into the lake, creating the false fake ID and the fish_n_chips alibi as a waitress in Pittsburgh. When David found the car, proving that Margot could not have run away, Vick turned Cartoff into a fall guy and killed him.

The film then goes back to Vick right after being arrested. As she is being transported into custody, David asks her where Margot’s body is, and Vick tells him that Margot’s body is in the ravine but that even if she had survived the fall, she could not have lived five days without water. David tells the police to turn the car around, pointing out that the storm occurred on the third day of the search, which would have provided Margot with water. At the ravine, the rescue crew discovers Margot severely injured but alive.

Two years later, Margot is shown to have applied for college to major in piano, with her acceptance status as pending. Through texts, David tells Margot that Pamela would have been proud of her, something he neglected to do at the start of the film.

Cast

John Cho as David Kim, Peter’s brother, Pamela Nam’s husband and Margot’s father
Debra Messing as Detective Sergeant Rosemary Vick, Robert’s mother
Michelle La as Margot Kim, the daughter of David and Pamela Kim and Peter’s niece
Kya Dawn Lau as 9-year-old Margot Kim
Megan Liu as 7-year-old Margot Kim
Alex Jayne Go as 5-year-old Margot Kim
Sara Sohn as Pamela Nam Kim, David’s wife and Margot’s mother
Joseph Lee as Peter Kim, David’s brother and Margot’s uncle
Steven Michael Eich as Robert Vick, Rosemary’s son
Ric Sarabia as Randy Cartoff, ex-convict
Sean O’Bryan as Radio Jockey
Colin Woodell as 911 Operator