It says a lot about John Cho’s performance and co-writer and director Aneesh Chaganty’s detailed and hyper-modern approach that Searching feels like it might actually be based on real events.
So much so that during my recent conversation with Cho about “Searching” I decided to quiz the actor about whether the story of his character David Kim’s search for his missing daughter Margot, which involves him diving deep into her computer and learning an inordinate amount about the real version of her, was based on a real story.
According to Cho, though, while the escalating events of the film are all made up, his character is actually heavily inspired by Chaganty’s father.
“My character was based, my sense is that it is a valentine to Aneesh’s father,” Cho explained. “Who is an engineer in Silicon Valley. But mostly it came from Aneesh Chaganty and his writing partner Sev Ohanian’s charge to make a film that takes place on screens.”
“At first they actually said no when they were offered to make a film that is set on screens. They didn’t think it was a great place to set a film. But as the weeks went by they had an idea for the movie, which is the opening sequence. And that led to the writing of the movie.”
“At that point they then said, ‘Well, what would be an exciting thing to happen? A natural thing to happen? That would match with the charge to tell a story that unfolds on screen.’”
“They were like, ‘What do people do most on computers? It is searching for stuff.’ And that is really where the story came from, because they then asked, ‘What if a man was searching for his missing daughter and had to use his computer?’”
“They had to use an older character that was computer literate to keep the plot going and that is why he is a Silicon Valley engineer.”
But while the plot of “Searching” is fictitious, Cho believes that it presents both the haunting and positive realities of the modern world now that billions and billions of people live their lives through their computers.
“I think the film is an acceptance of reality. Technology is just an augmenter of whatever you want to do, be it is good or evil.”
“There is something to say, in ethical terms, whether neutrality is a position in or of itself. The fact that the internet doesn’t judge whether a story is true or false factually is a problem.”
“But the movie stance, plot-wise, Margot gets lost and loses her way via her technology. However, tech is how her father searches for her. He is able to do something that generations before could not have done. He can cast a very wide and thorough net.”
“So it works both ways. The internet does increase everything, the dangers, it brings everything to bare.”
“I have always said that we used to tell our children, ‘Watch out for the creeps at the park.’ But now with the computer every creep in every park in the world has access to your child in their bedroom.”
“Searching” is released on August 24.
