This is the spiritual sequel to Searching (2018). The writers of Searching were Aneesh Chaganty and Sev Ohanian. That film was their debut. Chaganty even directed that 2018 thriller as his directorial debut. Chaganty and Ohanian get story credit for this film, but they've turned writing and directing duties to Nicholas D. Johnson and Will Merrick in their feature debut. Johnson and Merrick worked as editors on Searching. Now, they're in the driver's seat.
Like Searching, the genre or storytelling technique is that of "screenlife," a style of filmmaking popularized by Russian producer, Timur Bekmambetov, who is a producer here. Screenlife is when all the events in the narrative are shown or depicted through the protagonist's computer screen, tablet screen or smartphone screen, and nothing else. It's a gimmick, like that of found footage, that has its positives and negatives.
Storm Reid (A Wrinkle in Time and Sleight) stars as June Allen, a 18-year-old, biracial girl living in Los Angeles, specifically Van Nuys. She lives with her single mother. She misses her father who died a decade ago in San Antonio, Texas, which prompted June and her mother to move to California. She seems like your average teenager who is rebelling a little bit against her over-protective mom.
She's really rebelling against her mother's new boyfriend. She doesn't seem to have a good relationship with her potential stepfather. Things become exacerbated when her mom and her boyfriend go on a trip to Colombia for Father's Day, which causes June to miss her biological father even more.
Nia Long (The Best Man and Love Jones) co-stars as Grace Allen, the mother to June who likes to stay in constant contact with her daughter. She constantly sends text messages and leaves voicemails to her child. She's over-protective as most parents can be, but she seems even more so. It's odd that during her trip to South America, she stops that constant communication.
To the credit of the screenplay, if a loved one disappeared in a foreign country, this film provides a logical layout of what a person in the United States would do to find that loved one. The various web sites or Internet apps at one's disposal are used well. In terms of being a digital detective, this film does an adequate job, but I don't think it illuminates anything more than Searching.
The 2018 film was about a parent looking for a child and was about the parent discovering things about the web and their child that felt illuminating. Here, it's about the child looking for the parent, so the dynamic doesn't feel like anything is being discovered or illuminated. If anything, the whole thing ends up feeling like one long ad for Apple products, particularly the Apple Watch, FaceTime and Siri.
The ending appears to be a bit convoluted. Even a character states that they don't understand why the villain is doing what they're doing. The villain's actions and indeed plot make no sense. Yes, the villain can be dismissed as just a psychopath, but it's unclear what their goal was. By the end, the film offers no explanation or it doesn't bridge some of the gaps.
Rated PG-13 for some strong violence, language and teen drinking.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 51 mins.
In theaters.
