7.6 | / 10 |
Users | 3.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
David Kim becomes desperate when his 16-year-old daughter, Margot, disappears and an immediate police investigation leads nowhere. He soon decides to search the one place that no one else has: Margot's laptop. Hoping to trace her digital footprints, David contacts her friends and looks at photos and videos for any possible clues to her whereabouts.
Starring: John Cho, Debra Messing, Sara Sohn, Alex Jayne Go, Megan LiuThriller | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Mystery | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English, English SDH, French, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Digital copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Although the digital world has "brought people together," the reality is that the rise in online communication, friendships, and relationships has in some ways created a colder, more distant, more impersonal world. It is perhaps the most obvious, yet most ignored and misunderstood, juxtaposition of its time, maybe of all time. How can so much information, so many opportunities, so much personal intimacy pull and tug at a steadily fraying humanity? One of the answers is anonymity, another is secrecy, a third is intentional misdirection by way of anonymity and secrecy. One can argue that while the Internet has been the best thing to ever happen to man, it has also been the worst. Certainly a more thoughtful and thorough treatise on the positives and negatives of the 21st century's connected world is well beyond the purview of this review, but it's an important foundational note to begin a discussion of Searching, a stellar Missing Persons Thriller set entirely in the digital landscape. The film builds a compelling narrative through digital interactions, computer screens, photos, archived videos, maps, hidden cameras, anything and everything that can build a modern family, propel a story, and find the humanity in an entirely digital construct.
With Searching taking place entirely on one digital screen or another, and primarily on Margot's computer, the 1080p presentation is not one that is going to turn heads. But like others before it built around similar visual limitations, it's nearly impossible to criticize the image for various "problems" that are absolutely inherent to the source and are vital to reproducing the movie as the filmmakers intended. Various digital streams and feeds are of course littered with lower resolution, poor colors, and significant compression-related macroblocking effects. Some fare better than others, depending on the quality of the stream but also the location (day, night, interiors, exteriors, and so on). On the flip side, on-screen graphics such as still photos, file folders, computer menu screens, web browser images, and the like are appropriately sharp and very colorful. The transfer largely defies traditional review critiques. It looks just fine, seemingly as-intended, and the various warts are not warts but rather faithful reproductions that recreate an authentic web experience. No complaints here.
Searching features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. The presentation is surprisingly active, with music thriving under the lossless encoding, featuring quality width and surround integration with carefully manicured clarity, though music is never so robust as to distract from the online constraints. Music plays large with high yield surround activity when a "breaking news" alert signals a major story reveal later in the film. Music in every form finds just the right level of complimentary balance, never drawing the listener away from the visual and narrative focuses but rather complimenting them. A few key sound effects are nicely reproduced. There's good depth and width to the Apple startup chime, and in a key moment in chapter five, the track goes silent save for light keystrokes and mouse clicks which sonically reinforce David's journey of digital discovery. Dialogue is clear and well defined, even if it's meant to sound muddled coming through a stream or over the phone.
Searching contains an audio commentary track and a couple of featurettes. A Movies Anywhere digital copy code is included with purchase.
This release does not appear to ship with a slipcover.
Searching is both a robust missing person Thriller as well as an inventive take on the slowly growing "computer screen' subgenre that has heretofore almost exclusively operated in the Horror realm. This is a tense, well-executed, and both visually and emotionally engaging movie built from the ground-up for the online age. Its Director, Aneesh Chaganty, is one to keep an eye on. Sony's Blu-ray delivers perfectly good video and audio presentations and boasts a few high quality and complimentary extras. Highly recommended.
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