Searching (August 3, 2018) - starring John Cho, Debra Messing

[BigPudge]

Originally Posted by syrajuice

One thing I didn't like about this movie

[Show spoiler] Why does almost every movie have to have a happy ending when it does not even make sense? The daughter surviving was just stupid. The movie should've ended with the cop getting arrested and the daughter being buried next to her mother. But everyone needs a happy ending or they won't like the movie.

[Show spoiler]but, as i pointed out earlier, they flat out foreshadow her surviving earlier in the film when the father pulls up a news website and the main story on tje page is about a man who survived 5 days in the wild... so i very much appreciated the ending with that foreshadowing. Pkus the rain, that you just thought was rain, but it helped her survive... i thought it was masterful weiting

[Kevinicus]

Originally Posted by Batman1980

I saw trailers for it twice, I believe. Gotta imagine it's riding on the coat-tails of CRA a bit. Fantastic film I thought, even though I saw a couple of the twists coming and it has a couple of fake endings.

I don't think it's riding CRA's coattails at all. I've seen plenty of advertisements for this movie.

What I haven't really seen is a bunch of talk about diversity and all that stuff, which is kind of telling, especially since I think this movie does it's kind of movie much better (after thinking on it some more, I have a greater appreciation than I did initially) than CRA did it's type of movie.

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by syrajuice

One thing I didn't like about this movie

[Show spoiler] Why does almost every movie have to have a happy ending when it does not even make sense? The daughter surviving was just stupid. The movie should've ended with the cop getting arrested and the daughter being buried next to her mother. But everyone needs a happy ending or they won't like the movie.

I’m with everyone else,

[Show spoiler]this didn’t require a pessimistic ending. The film revolves around the Father’s disconnect from his Daughter after the Mother’s death, and ultimately is emulated through social media and technology. To add a final twist of the knife like that would deprive the film of an overall arc to the characters, along with removing it’s frank, apathetic portrayal of our modern world in favour of a nail-to-the-head unsubtle cautionary tale (which the film provides regardless).

And on the subject, we really aren’t short on unhappy endings, heck this year alone the biggest film of summer concludes with

[Show spoiler]half of the universe wiped out

.

[CelluloidPal]

Chalk this one as another surprise movie this summer after Alpha. I truly dug this movie.
An excellent and clever hybrid of a techno-mystery/thriller and a family drama. It was engaging from start to finish full of suspense, twists and turns and a large amount of heart. Excellent performances from John Cho and Debra Messing. They both did great jobs here.
The summer movie season closes out on a high note with this one.

5 of 5

[The Great Owl]

As much as I enjoyed seeing Searching at the theater, I'm thinking that it's a “one and done” movie, meaning that I don't see myself watching it over and over again on Blu-ray later on.

There are quite a few great “one and done” movies where, because of the setup, there's just nothing quite like the first initial viewing.

[Jennifer Lawrence Fan]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

As much as I enjoyed seeing Searching at the theater, I'm thinking that it's a “one and done” movie, meaning that I don't see myself watching it over and over again on Blu-ray later on.

There are quite a few great “one and done” movies where, because of the setup, there's just nothing quite like the first initial viewing.

I agree on that. it was good. but don't know if I ever see myself re-watching it again anytime soon.

[Black Sabbath]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

As much as I enjoyed seeing Searching at the theater, I'm thinking that it's a “one and done” movie, meaning that I don't see myself watching it over and over again on Blu-ray later on.

There are quite a few great “one and done” movies where, because of the setup, there's just nothing quite like the first initial viewing.

Thought the same thing on my way home.

Very good movie and I'll certainly recommend it to people, but don't see myself sitting down to watch it again. And that's OK. Not every movie needs to be watched over and over.

[Sommerswerd]

Originally Posted by The Great Owl

As much as I enjoyed seeing Searching at the theater, I'm thinking that it's a “one and done” movie, meaning that I don't see myself watching it over and over again on Blu-ray later on.

There are quite a few great “one and done” movies where, because of the setup, there's just nothing quite like the first initial viewing.

The advantage of seeing it again is you can start focusing your attention on the small details and subtle clues that foreshadow the film. Or so I heard from people who have seen it multiple times.

[syrajuice]

Originally Posted by Foggy

I’m with everyone else,

[Show spoiler]this didn’t require a pessimistic ending. The film revolves around the Father’s disconnect from his Daughter after the Mother’s death, and ultimately is emulated through social media and technology. To add a final twist of the knife like that would deprive the film of an overall arc to the characters, along with removing it’s frank, apathetic portrayal of our modern world in favour of a nail-to-the-head unsubtle cautionary tale (which the film provides regardless).

And on the subject, we really aren’t short on unhappy endings, heck this year alone the biggest film of summer concludes with

[Show spoiler]half of the universe wiped out

.

[Show spoiler] I don't have a problem with happy endings but not one that just has the person survive with little reasoning. Did you see the cliff the girl was pushed down? Plus she wasn't stranded in the wild they made it seem she was unconscious or couldn't move the way she was pulled up. 90% of movies have happy endings and that just does not match up with real life. I get it that it's a movie and not real life but I would like to see more movies take chances instead of the typical they life happily ever after hollywood endings you see ALL THE TIME especially in thrillers like this one.

[Kevinicus]

Originally Posted by syrajuice

[Show spoiler] I don't have a problem with happy endings but not one that just has the person survive with little reasoning. Did you see the cliff the girl was pushed down? Plus she wasn't stranded in the wild they made it seem she was unconscious or couldn't move the way she was pulled up. 90% of movies have happy endings and that just does not match up with real life. I get it that it's a movie and not real life but I would like to see more movies take chances instead of the typical they life happily ever after hollywood endings you see ALL THE TIME especially in thrillers like this one.

[Show spoiler]I would say happy endings are becoming more and more rare.
In fact, it's quite annoying how much of a trope it has become for certain genres to have an unhappy ending. Usually rendering everything you just watched as completely pointless.

[Chaotic]

[Show spoiler]Almost all horror movies or thrillers end with the characters dying or meeting an unhappy ending these days.

[HorrorBlu]

The advertising for this is setting up some major M. Night style twist, and I was super disappointed there wasn't one. It was pretty ordinary for this type of movie.

Movie was fine. Would have been just as fine on NetFlix. I saw both this and Kin this afternoon, and both times had the entire theater to myself. Don't think I've ever had that happen twice in one day.

[aiman04]

Remind me when it hits home video, premise sounds interesting to watch with my teenage kid.

[Shingster]

Originally Posted by Kevinicus

I don't think it's riding CRA's coattails at all. I've seen plenty of advertisements for this movie.

What I haven't really seen is a bunch of talk about diversity and all that stuff, which is kind of telling, especially since I think this movie does it's kind of movie much better (after thinking on it some more, I have a greater appreciation than I did initially) than CRA did it's type of movie.

It's because CRA is specifically about asian and asian-american issues and it's been more successful and came out first, so it makes a much bigger statement. Aside from the Kim surname and a mention of a "kimchi gumbo" recipe and a Korean grandparent name in the apple facetime app (or whatever the app was) there's absolutely no mention at all of the main character's Korean heritage. It's not an active theme within the film.

They're american characters played by american actors and you could have replaced them all with black or white characters, so Searching should be celebrated as a great example of colour-blind casting (which imo is probably a more important aspect of the whole diversity movement) in the same way that CRA was celebrated for its diversity, but as I said Searching came out after so was destined to live CRA's shadow in that regard.

[Kevinicus]

Originally Posted by HorrorBlu

The advertising for this is setting up some major M. Night style twist, and I was super disappointed there wasn't one. It was pretty ordinary for this type of movie.

Movie was fine. Would have been just as fine on NetFlix. I saw both this and Kin this afternoon, and both times had the entire theater to myself. Don't think I've ever had that happen twice in one day.

I almost had this (same movies). Difference was one other person showed up for Searching at the end of the trailers.

[Unknown450]

Just got back from seeing this. I loved it, a small film well made in an interesting way. As for the ending

[Show spoiler] Normally I'd say true not every movie needs that happy ending but I'm glad it ended with her being alive. Glad that the father gets to have a chance to reconnect with his daughter instead of living the rest of his life beating himself up and blaming himself for her death. And that's cause i felt for these characters. Every movie doesn't need a happy ending but I'm glad this one got it.

I talked with the manager at the cinemark I went to tonight before my showing and he said i was the only one showing up for the showing and that the movie did very poorly last weekend at the other cinemark.
Which is a shame, this movie deserves attention and viewings. But i guess they didn't get heavy on the marketing.

[syrajuice]

Originally Posted by Chaotic

[Show spoiler]Almost all horror movies or thrillers end with the characters dying or meeting an unhappy ending these days.

[Show spoiler] 1.) This was not a horror movie 2.) Name these recent thrillers that have had unhappy endings. Almost every move similar to this one has a happy ending it's so predictable for these movies now.

[flash.over]

This was good, but I called the twist to my friend the second

[Show spoiler]Vick told the story about covering for her son’s fake charity

, so it felt pretty good at the end haha

[sawdustandtinsel]

I liked this a lot more than I thought I would. My only quibbles with it are the fact that they tipped their hand by

[Show spoiler]making the mascot of the high school a catfish and I'm not sure if the producer's laptop at the end being used was on purpose or not, either way, it was tacky.

But other than that I thought it was a solid thriller with some good performances and an interesting concept.

[atomicreplicant]

I've seen this twice now so thoughts after each viewing separate.

First viewing: I thought the movie was pretty great. I thought it pulled off the everything-told-through-a-laptop-screen effectively without feeling contrived or gimmicky. John Cho is good at frowning and pretty great overall. Debra Messing impressed me in a non-comedic role. The writing and pacing were solid. The handful of comedic beats landed well

[Show spoiler]Bieber concert... confirmed

and the movie surprised me multiple times with where it was headed. John's character was logical and there weren't obvious plot holes

[Show spoiler]except that he didn't go through all of his daughter's messages earlier and find the conversation with the uncle

.

Some were disappointed with the

[Show spoiler]happy ending

but I feel like you can treat

[Show spoiler]twists like that almost as separate/different endings

to suit your mood/philosophy. I thought the

[Show spoiler]first ending with the stranger murder was more realistic and less Hollywood

but agreed with the earlier comment that the ending was necessary to complete the character arcs,

[Show spoiler]circling back to Mom would be proud too and coping to restore the family

.

Second viewing: Agree with earlier comments that movie has rewatchability, there are many details hinting at later plot points that are missed on the first viewing. Examples:

[Show spoiler]

• Robert being in Pam's contacts as having a crush on M
• Hiker headline on abc7 news
• Vick's facebook cover photo
• Youcast comments "why are you lying in the back seat"
• Robert's favorite Pokemon Kecleon is a chameleon

However some of these also lead to plot holes I didn't initially notice, like

[Show spoiler]how did no one call out Vick having a kid in the same grade at the same school (and middle school) with Margot

Anyway, I thought the movie was great. 4.5 rounding up to 5

ETA: Forgot to mention I'm a big fan of the

[Show spoiler]Up-style

opening that gets you quickly invested in the characters.