Movie Review: Searching (2018)

A missing person suspense drama, Searching reveals its story through screens within screens, building tension within the reality of a society running on microchips.

All events are viewed through saved or streaming video files, mostly on the home computer of the Kim family, used by dad David (John Cho), mom Pam (Sara Sohn) and their daughter Margot (Michelle La). Pam dies from cancer around the time Margot enters high school. Dad and daughter are immersed in grief and drift apart. David's brother Peter (Joseph Lee) lives nearby and is the only other family member they are in touch with.

One day Margot is late to return home from school after attending a study group the previous night. David attempts to track her down by contacting her friends, but eventually reports her as missing. Detective Rosemary Vick (Debra Messing), a missing persons specialist, jumps onto the case and starts to investigate. David eventually breaks into Margot's laptop and discovers the many secrets she had been keeping from him. Father and detective work together to piece together Margot's story, with many surprises in store.

Enjoying the playfulness of the computer screen sub-genre, Searching combines a clever format with an intriguing-enough case of a missing teenager. Co-produced by Timur Bekmambetov and directed and co-written by Aneesh Chaganty, the film reveals only what David knows and when he knows it, his world shrinking into an increasingly agitated hunt for clues through his daughter's digital world.

Behind the search for Margot is astute commentary on lives now entirely lived, recorded and saved online, one byte leading to another. David traces his daughter's activities on web sites he never knew existed, interacting with "friends" he did not know she had, uncovering numerous contacts, photos and files, all potentially containing critical clues but most just comprising a heap of humdrum digital debris.

Sly humour enlivens the search, the online world's best and worst tendencies to adopt a cause, cash-in, then turn sour playing across David's screens as he tries to cut through the clutter, connect the pixels, and get to the truth. And despite every click creating a record, Margot's anxieties remain hidden from her father until he goes looking. The availability of limitless connectivity is distinct and separate from improving human interaction, and instead provides a cheap refuge from the necessary process of grieving.

The format limits the mystery's scope, and with few defined characters Chaganty's greatest challenge was always going to be finding a satisfactory resolution to the riddle of Margot's disappearance. The chosen path is merely fair, and still requires the significant involvement of a barely sketched-in tertiary presence.

But Searching remains a remarkably absorbing experience, a fly-in-the-machine view of every parent's worst nightmare.



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Movie Review: Along Came Polly (2004)

A romantic comedy that mixes classy charm with bathroom humour, Along Came Polly benefits from appealing leads and good depth in the supporting cast.

Reuben (Ben Stiller) is an insurance risk analyst who does nothing without calculating all possible risks. He marries his sweetheart Lisa (Debra Messing), and is crushed when she immediately betrays him by jumping into bed with hunky scuba instructor Claude (Hank Azaria) early in their Caribbean honeymoon. Reuben returns to work and stubbornly hangs on to his spreadsheet-based risk-assessment mentality despite Lisa's betrayal exposing its failings in devastating terms.

At an art gallery, Reuben reconnects with Polly (Jennifer Aniston), a former high school classmate who used to be brainy but is now a lowly server with a catering company. Polly has chosen a nomadic life of planning for nothing and going wherever the wind pushes her. She is messy, unsettled and unpredictable, loves spicy food and dancing, and takes risks as a matter of routine. Polly is the exact opposite of what Reuben should be looking for, but they nevertheless fall in love. When Lisa comes back to town pleading for a second chance, Reuben has to decide between the comforts of familiarity or the adventure of learning to take risks.

Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston slip effortlessly into the two central roles of Along Came Polly. Stiller shines as Reuben struggles to explain his growing attraction to Polly's world of chaos, while Aniston has never been better on the big screen, her Polly not shy about having fun, but also struggling to hide the insecurities that drive her fear of growing up and settling down.

The supporting actors add a lot of entertaining and good quality colour to the world of Reuben. Philip Seymour Hoffman is Sandy, Reuben's boorish friend. A former child actor with one notable supporting performance on his resume, Hoffman is quite hilarious as Sandy goes through life demanding never-deserved respect, oblivious to a career that long-since seeped out of the bottom of the barrel. Alec Baldwin as Reuben's boss and Bryan Brown as a daredevil, Richard Branson-type CEO being evaluated by Reuben for insurability are much better than the usually predicable characters supporting romantic comedy leads.

Although he does dwell on some admittedly funny bathroom and body fluid humour, director and writer John Hamburg keeps the pacing brisk, with both the romance and the comedy progressing smoothly, an example of how a script written by one person often trumps the over-bloated malaise of scripts-by-committee.

Not all unexpected visitors are welcome, but Along Came Polly proves to be a pleasantly entertaining encounter.

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