It is clear to everybody that movies of the 2010s seemed to have forgotten what “innovation” is.  Every film is a preteen romance, bloody war movie, or a jumpscare-filled horror thriller. However, Aneesh Chaganty’s masterpiece, Searching,winner of the Sundance Film Festival, transforms a normal mystery into a wonderful thriller that is completely, from title to credits, filmed on a computer screen.

The movie starts with a concerned and shy father named David Kim (John Cho), who has not only lost his wife Pamela (Sara Sohn), but has just found out that his daughter Margot (Michelle La) is gone. He, along with the kind and modest Detective Vick (Debra Messing) look through Margot’s contacts, texts, and photos in search of, uncovering the greatest plot twist of all time. The characters feel in touch with reality. The way Kim reacts to the information he discovers about his daughter is the same as one of any normal persont. After leaving the movie theater, John Cho’s performance made me think that this story could happen to anyone at any point in time.

One creative aspect of the film is the fact that the audience sees the movie from a view of a computer. You see exactly the websites Kim goes on, the news reports about his daughter, and even the FaceTime calls he makes.  The sounds of the computer are what make this movie so thrilling because we all know these sounds well and hear them everyday. The clever use of the Windows startup music goes from being witty, to being haunting to the point that the audience begins to fear that sound effect. The computer calendar is used to show the life of Margot before her absence. Thanks to it, the viewer knows that  16 year old Margot’s mother is dead, that she plays the piano, and that she does well in school, within the first five minutes of the movie. Although this form of cinematography has been done before, such as in the movie Unfriended, it has never been used in such a creative way. When asked what makes this movie different from others like it during an interview with ScreenRant, Chaganty said “we realized that the best way to do this was by taking an unconventional filmmaking approach and marrying it with a very conventional classic structure. That marriage can be something very, very fresh, emotional, engaging, and honestly put the story first. Which was something that we felt like it had never been done. And if we were to execute that, maybe it would feel like the first time this has ever been accomplished.”

In addition to having a thrilling plot and great cinematography, the movie also carries serious messages regarding drugs and the fear of people. Close to the climax of the movie, it is found out that Kim’s close brother has been giving Margot marijuana. The drugs are later discovered at the same place where the young girl disappeared. The connection of drugs tothe case teaches an important lesson to the audience.. The movie also shows a message about how we are all afraid of people. When a boy comes over to Margot to apologize to her, she immediately thinks that he wants to kill her and runs away, without saying a word. This event shows that we stopped trusting people and any person unfamiliar to us, automatically wants to harm us, which is both satirical and allegorical.

The ingenious film, Searching makes it clear that movies can still be clever. It is original when it comes to its cinematography and has a thrilling plot. Most importantly though, it shows that good films can be made and are on their way.