As I've often remarked, there's a kind of formula that applies to most scripts. Good scripts, bad scripts. It's the hero's journey formula.
A recap: Our hero lives in an Ordinary World. (That might be Simba's childhood tomfoolery in "The Lion King," or Charlie Bucket's life of poverty, Roald Dahl-style, near the toothpaste-cap-factory, eating slop, and reheated slop, etc.)
Some kind of summons arrives. The hero must enter an Enchanted World. (Simba's father dies, and Simba must battle to take his place on the throne. Charlie Bucket gets the golden ticket, etc.)
In the Enchanted World, some kind of grail awaits our hero. But the grail is hidden. Perhaps the grail is a trinket; perhaps the grail is the overthrowing of evil or the restoration of good rule throughout the land. (Simba's grail is the title LION KING.)
Various allies and tricksters join our hero on his path toward the grail. Friendly warthogs. Scar's minions, who might seem nice, but actually aren't (and you have to detect the clues). The allies and tricksters have plots of their own--subplots--and these lighter, slighter plots often provide indirect commentary on the "main action" we're witnessing. (In "Carousel," Carrie's story is like an alternate-history version of Julie's story. We see the kind of security Julie *could have* chosen, if she had gone down Carrie's path. And we see that--actually--Carrie's path, though safer, is not without its own briar patches.)
At the climax, our hero does battle with the villain and seizes the elixir--the MacGuffin--the throne--the magical potion. Seizes the thing we have been longing for. The hero then returns to the Ordinary World with the elixir, and all is well in the universe. Perhaps the villain returns for one last battle (think of Glenn Close, leaping up from the dead at the end of "Fatal Attraction"), but, in any case, we know that good will prevail--and we return to our cars with a warm, cozy feeling, having been jolted and chilled and thrilled, etc.
Richard Brody of "The New Yorker" was maybe the only critic who didn't love the John Cho vehicle "Searching"--I guess he felt the characters were fairly "thin"--and I'd like to argue that Brody overlooks how "well-built" this movie is.
Sure, John Cho's character is not someone who "stays with us" for days and days. The same with Debra Messing's character. But I'm a sucker for a skilled technician--and whoever put together "Searching" has shown Taylor Swift-esque savant-like abilities in the storytelling world.
What do I mean? Well, consider the opening--the Ordinary World. Stealing rather shamelessly from Pixar's "Up," the director gives us a predictable, and still moving, montage, where we witness the birth, and growth, of a family. Through emails and video-chats, we see the young couple give birth, and we watch the daughter growing up. Then, inevitably, Mom gets cancer--and Mom dies. End of the Ordinary World. We are thrown into the Enchanted World. The World of Grief.
Crucially, at the start of the Enchanted World segment, John Cho types an IM to his daughter, something like: "Mom would be so proud of you." Then--unable to show grief in an open way--Cho deletes this part of the message before sending. That's the key to the movie.
Standard heroes-and-villains plot. Cho's daughter goes missing. Cho finds allies, and tricksters who seem like allies, and allies who briefly become trickster-ish but then reveal their true ally colors. One well-oiled diversion has Cho suspecting his own brother, who (it's revealed) has authored several suspicious text messages.
But, in fact, the brother was sort of being a surrogate father to the (now-missing) daughter. He was giving her pot and allowing her to mourn her mom. (She couldn't mourn her mom when around her icy, though well-meaning, dad.) The brother felt guilty about the pot, and so...thus...cover-up, and then misunderstanding, and then misunderstanding upon misunderstanding, etc.
In the big (again, maybe slightly predictable) twist, the ultimate ally reveals herself to be a trickster. And her reasons for fucking over John Cho prove to be weirdly compelling: This part of the story is a satire on helicopter parenting (just as the main story, Cho's story, is a satire on overly-distant parenting). The moral: Whether you choose to be overly-involved, or under-involved, it's likely you're just fucked, if you're a parent. People are people. It's a jungle out there.
Having slayed the dragon, through various implausible and dramatic choices, Cho brings back a new elixir--the elixir of Self-Awareness--and returns to his Ordinary World. His daughter has some kind of piano performance, or something. Cho types what he could not type before: "Mom would have been proud of you." We understand that we have come full circle. Cho has learned how to make himself vulnerable. Our journey is complete.
As an aside, there's another element of satire here. It's a fun "Dear Evan Hansen"-ish commentary on the way people turn themselves into Mythological Figures in the era of Facebook. How we can know someone only in passing--then decide that we were that person's best friend, the moment after he dies. How we can't help but Tweet about our feelings of profound loss. This is a smart, nasty observation in "Searching," and like many other aspects of the movie, it's delightful.
So: You won't find any Sweeney Todds or Hamlets in "Searching." It's not "Anna Karenina." But it tells a twisty, thoughtful story. It has at least a small bit to say about what we're like as parents, and how certain human behaviors seem to be more or less constant throughout history (regardless of the particular technological landscape we're facing, at any given moment).
My two cents. I had a blast with "Searching."
See this movie.
A recap: Our hero lives in an Ordinary World. (That might be Simba's childhood tomfoolery in "The Lion King," or Charlie Bucket's life of poverty, Roald Dahl-style, near the toothpaste-cap-factory, eating slop, and reheated slop, etc.)
Some kind of summons arrives. The hero must enter an Enchanted World. (Simba's father dies, and Simba must battle to take his place on the throne. Charlie Bucket gets the golden ticket, etc.)
In the Enchanted World, some kind of grail awaits our hero. But the grail is hidden. Perhaps the grail is a trinket; perhaps the grail is the overthrowing of evil or the restoration of good rule throughout the land. (Simba's grail is the title LION KING.)
Various allies and tricksters join our hero on his path toward the grail. Friendly warthogs. Scar's minions, who might seem nice, but actually aren't (and you have to detect the clues). The allies and tricksters have plots of their own--subplots--and these lighter, slighter plots often provide indirect commentary on the "main action" we're witnessing. (In "Carousel," Carrie's story is like an alternate-history version of Julie's story. We see the kind of security Julie *could have* chosen, if she had gone down Carrie's path. And we see that--actually--Carrie's path, though safer, is not without its own briar patches.)
At the climax, our hero does battle with the villain and seizes the elixir--the MacGuffin--the throne--the magical potion. Seizes the thing we have been longing for. The hero then returns to the Ordinary World with the elixir, and all is well in the universe. Perhaps the villain returns for one last battle (think of Glenn Close, leaping up from the dead at the end of "Fatal Attraction"), but, in any case, we know that good will prevail--and we return to our cars with a warm, cozy feeling, having been jolted and chilled and thrilled, etc.
Richard Brody of "The New Yorker" was maybe the only critic who didn't love the John Cho vehicle "Searching"--I guess he felt the characters were fairly "thin"--and I'd like to argue that Brody overlooks how "well-built" this movie is.
Sure, John Cho's character is not someone who "stays with us" for days and days. The same with Debra Messing's character. But I'm a sucker for a skilled technician--and whoever put together "Searching" has shown Taylor Swift-esque savant-like abilities in the storytelling world.
What do I mean? Well, consider the opening--the Ordinary World. Stealing rather shamelessly from Pixar's "Up," the director gives us a predictable, and still moving, montage, where we witness the birth, and growth, of a family. Through emails and video-chats, we see the young couple give birth, and we watch the daughter growing up. Then, inevitably, Mom gets cancer--and Mom dies. End of the Ordinary World. We are thrown into the Enchanted World. The World of Grief.
Crucially, at the start of the Enchanted World segment, John Cho types an IM to his daughter, something like: "Mom would be so proud of you." Then--unable to show grief in an open way--Cho deletes this part of the message before sending. That's the key to the movie.
Standard heroes-and-villains plot. Cho's daughter goes missing. Cho finds allies, and tricksters who seem like allies, and allies who briefly become trickster-ish but then reveal their true ally colors. One well-oiled diversion has Cho suspecting his own brother, who (it's revealed) has authored several suspicious text messages.
But, in fact, the brother was sort of being a surrogate father to the (now-missing) daughter. He was giving her pot and allowing her to mourn her mom. (She couldn't mourn her mom when around her icy, though well-meaning, dad.) The brother felt guilty about the pot, and so...thus...cover-up, and then misunderstanding, and then misunderstanding upon misunderstanding, etc.
In the big (again, maybe slightly predictable) twist, the ultimate ally reveals herself to be a trickster. And her reasons for fucking over John Cho prove to be weirdly compelling: This part of the story is a satire on helicopter parenting (just as the main story, Cho's story, is a satire on overly-distant parenting). The moral: Whether you choose to be overly-involved, or under-involved, it's likely you're just fucked, if you're a parent. People are people. It's a jungle out there.
Having slayed the dragon, through various implausible and dramatic choices, Cho brings back a new elixir--the elixir of Self-Awareness--and returns to his Ordinary World. His daughter has some kind of piano performance, or something. Cho types what he could not type before: "Mom would have been proud of you." We understand that we have come full circle. Cho has learned how to make himself vulnerable. Our journey is complete.
As an aside, there's another element of satire here. It's a fun "Dear Evan Hansen"-ish commentary on the way people turn themselves into Mythological Figures in the era of Facebook. How we can know someone only in passing--then decide that we were that person's best friend, the moment after he dies. How we can't help but Tweet about our feelings of profound loss. This is a smart, nasty observation in "Searching," and like many other aspects of the movie, it's delightful.
So: You won't find any Sweeney Todds or Hamlets in "Searching." It's not "Anna Karenina." But it tells a twisty, thoughtful story. It has at least a small bit to say about what we're like as parents, and how certain human behaviors seem to be more or less constant throughout history (regardless of the particular technological landscape we're facing, at any given moment).
My two cents. I had a blast with "Searching."
See this movie.
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