Searching review: Highlights the strengths and limitations of a new genre

'Screenlife' films are intended to free filmmakers to reinvent storytelling for an online age but some of the late twists here are formulaic

Aneesh Chaganty, 102 mins, starring: John Cho, Debra Messing, Joseph Lee, Michelle La, Sara Sohn, Roy Abramsohn

Aneesh Chaganty’s low-budget crime thriller about a missing teenager highlights the strengths and the limitations of the “Screenlife” film concept developed by Russian director, Timur Bekmambetov (and used for such recent movies as Unfriended: Dark Web and Profile).

These are projects which unfold entirely on computer screens. Their writers and directors devise stories which can be told through smartphone or laptop cameras and social media feeds.

Margot Kim (Michelle La) is a seemingly well-adjusted 16-year-old Asian-American, a gifted pianist who has a close and apparently open relationship with her devoted father, David Kim (John Cho). However, the family is under strain following the death of Margot’s mother, Pamela (Sara Sohn), after a battle against cancer.

When Margot disappears, her distraught father uses her laptop to try to work out what has become of her. He soon discovers sides of her life that he had no previous knowledge about. Margot has been bunking off from her piano lessons and putting the money David gave her for them into a secret account. She is not popular at school. She has been taking drugs. She has been sexually harassed online.

“I don’t know my daughter!” the distraught David exclaims as he delves into Margot’s secret files and investigates her browsing history and her online connections through Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter etc.

As a drama about a father and a daughter relationship, Searching is nuanced and affecting. As a thriller, it becomes increasingly contrived and far-fetched. The most problematic character here is the police detective, Rosemary Vick (Debra Messing) assigned to the case.

She is a sympathetic and seemingly diligent cop whose determination to crack the case is intensified by her own family relationships. (She has a son roughly the same age as Margot. As she tells David, she would do anything to protect him.) However, as the film progresses, the detective’s behaviour becomes increasingly erratic.

As he tries to crank up the tension, Chaganty makes inventive use not just of the clues that the missing girl leaves online but of surveillance and webcam footage of everything from traffic jams to church services.

He is very clever in the way he sketches in the family’s history through the photo albums and videos they keep online. He also shows how easy it is for the father to misunderstand what he sees of his daughter’s life online. He is quick to leap to conclusions which aren’t always correct.

The disappointment in an otherwise intriguing character-based drama is the extremely formulaic way it ends. Screenlife films are intended to free filmmakers to reinvent storytelling for an online age but some of the late twists here are so formulaic that you half suspect the script was written by a computer programme.

'Searching' is in UK cinemas from 31 August