![]() Suffice to say Searching is far more than a simple abduction thriller – Liam Neeson would have probably just shot the hell out of all the devices on display here and gotten nowhere fast – but is also a savvy commentary on both family and our utter dependence on all those weirdly less and less invasive (or are they?) byproducts of the Anthropocene internet age. To say more would defeat the many red herrings, and spoil the increasingly jarring revelations within the film’s narrative. All of this, of course, is viewed by both characters and the audience through the black mirror tech that eventually becomes a sort of character itself. Soon all the “if it bleeds, it leads” news coverage and a perpetual barrage of Amber Alerts focus on the case. ![]() When Margot fails to return home after a high school study group one night, the story moves into manic parent overdrive with search and rescue teams, led by Detective Rosemary Vick (Messing), covering the jagged canyons outside of San Jose. Cho shines here as the doting dad who just might not know his equally grieving offspring as well as he should. Things begin to fall apart for the Kims when Pam is stricken with lymphoma, leaving widower David to finish raising young Margot on his own. It’s a clever, flawless introduction that instantly integrates you into the Kim family’s life via Moore’s law. Early-Aughts-era video clips of Margot’s birth, her first day of kindergarten, piano lessons, and so on are shown via the tech of the times, moving from Microsoft Windows heavily pixelated Internet Explorer footage to, eventually, Apple’s crystal clear retina display. Chaganty keeps things from becoming too static by overlapping the various boxes of information across the (big) screen, thus rendering the gimmick into a narratively cohesive and ultimately satisfying missing persons thrill-ride.Ĭrucially, Searching begins with an opening cyber-montage of the evolution of the Kim family, dad David (Cho), mom Pam (Sohn), and their daughter Margot (La). The myriad devices that now comprise most people’s methods of interpersonal communication – iPhones, FaceTime, laptops, chat rooms, apps galore, CCTV, ad infinitum – are cunningly deployed here. A Saban Films release.Surprisingly effective for what could easily be labeled a “gimmick film,” Chaganty’s debut feature suspenser unfolds entirely onscreen on screens. MPAA Rating: R for language and some sexuality/nudity.Ĭast: Imogen Poots, Jesse Eisenberg, Senan Jennings, Eanna Hardwicke and Jonathan ArisĬredits: Directed by Lorcan Finnegan, script by Garret Shanley. We see a cuckoo imposter hatch in a nest, and push other chicks out, forcing the hapless mama bird of another species to raise him instead.ĭoes that sound like a clever “Twilight Zone” episode? Sure. The opening credits give away what the game will be. Let’s deal with this thing imposed on us because we dared to house shop. It would kill the love in any couple, much less one that hasn’t made that final leap to marriage.Īnd there’s another shriek. Eisenberg’s Tom just hits a couple of notes - rage and madness. ![]() Poots gives us a lot of responses - fear, resignation, fury and hatred. ![]() The little creep ( Senan Jennings) speaks in a disembodied adult voice, impersonating what his “parents” say, shrieking when he’s ready for bed, hungry, etc. And the longer they have to “Raise the child and be released,” the more hellish their lot is. But that’s not the dead give away you might think.ĭescribing the place as “near enough” from everything, “far enough” from everything else, as “ideal” and “forever” is just automaton real estate babble, right?ĭitching them at unit/house #9 in “Yonder,” the development they’ve driven into, leaving them only a welcome basket of champagne and strawberries after they spend hours trying to drive or parkour their way out? That’s not the worst of it.Ī baby is dropped in their laps, packed in the sort of box Amazon might leave on your stoop. The creepy/oily realtor (Jonathan Aris) may seem a trifle inhuman. Jemma and Tom are house shopping somewhere in Northern Ireland when they stumble into a home tour with no way out. Like many a genre picture before it, there’s a sci-fi gimmick and little else to prop it up beyond repeating variations on “How do we escape this suburban hell?” ad infinitum. Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg play a young couple trapped in a rabbit maze housing development, forced to raise a child dropped on their cookie-cutter house’s doorstep, in “Vivarium,” a quirky science experiment in drama form.
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