In the opening sequence of Searching, the title is typed out in stark white Arial font, with the blinking cursor gradually disappearing into a black screen. From this nothingness we hear orchestral music ominously swelling to a heart-pounding intensity, and then — just as we might expect a cut to a car chase or the discovery of a body — the noise abruptly diffuses into the cheerful startup jingle of a Microsoft Window XP operating system. This is the primary setting of Searching, a thriller for the digital age: an unassuming default desktop wallpaper, with its rolling green hills and digitally retouched blue skies.

The central conceit of Searching, the directorial debut of Aneesh Chaganty, is simple but brilliant: a missing-person thriller told entirely through screens. The plot follows harassed single father David Kim (John Cho) in the wake of his 16-year-old daughter Margot’s (Michelle La) disappearance. 37 hours later, her disappearance is reported to the local police and the case is assigned to Detective Rosemary Vick (Debra Messing). David, increasingly desperate with the lack of leads, decides to search Margot’s laptop for clues.

Every shot in the film is mediated by a device. We learn about the characters through their Google search history, the YouTube videos they watch, the messages they type and delete, their awkward FaceTime calls with other characters, their email inboxes and the pictures they post to Facebook or Instagram. The result is a hypermodern drama that is surprisingly absorbing, reaching what one reviewer called “Hitchcock levels of suspense”, even though we never see the main characters out of the diegetic space of the screen.

Part of what makes the film click is how unexpectedly intimate the format is. While we never see the characters’ faces “in real life,” there is something undeniably personal about watching what they do in the privacy of their digital accounts. David and Margot’s laptops quite literally reveal their memories and histories. We learn about Pamela’s diagnosis of lymphoma through an email from a San Jose county hospital to Pamela’s inbox and through David typing “how to fight cancer as a family” into a search bar. The film conveys Pamela’s death by David’s deleting “Mom comes home” from iCalendar and his searching for a photo to use for her wake announcement.

David and Margot’s relationship is visibly strained after Pamela’s death, and so it quickly becomes clear in the film that David is searching not only physically, but also psychologically for his absent daughter. We witness David haranguing Margot via text, and Margot hanging up prematurely on her father while video chatting. Post-disappearance, David discovers his daughter’s loneliness, painfully documented in her Tumblr photos and YouCast vlogs. He is astonished and heartbroken to discover a Facebook photo of her classmates eating lunch together at Evercreek High School, while Margot sits in a corner by herself.

The stakes are high in Searching. As David digs deeper into Margot’s laptop, the plot takes several shocking turns. The film smartly avoids pitfalls of sensationalist murder-porn cinema, while still keeping viewers at the edge of their seats. Commonplace online activity takes on grim significance. Just before Margot goes missing, the notifications for three missed FaceTime calls glow eerily on David’s screensaver in the dead of the night. In another scene, David’s drive to Margot’s last seen location is harrowingly communicated via Google Maps driving directions and voice messages.

In the context of contemporary debates about racial representation in cinema — e.g. Crazy Rich Asians — it is worth mentioning that Searching is the first Hollywood thriller to star an Asian-American actor. In 2016, the Asian-American media activist tag #starringjohncho went viral. Now, (finally!) Cho is a leading man. His performance as a guilt-ridden father, be it pixelated and freeze-framed at times, is a testament to his great and under-utilized talent. Similarly, feature film newcomer Michelle La poignantly portrays a distant daughter with an appropriate mixture of angst and self-consciousness.

At times, however, the conceit of Searching becomes clunky, and at worst, contrived. A lingering cursor or the backspace button can only be imbued with so much emotion before the scene becomes unbearably slow. The filmmaker’s solution to the lack of human presence in the film is to find as many excuses as possible to show us webcam videos of David’s face, even if the situations are odd. For example, to show us David’s reaction to Margot’s lack of messages, the filmmakers construct a shot so David leaves his video camera on after a work call. The trick doesn’t quite work here: who leaves their webcam on when they are done video calling? Similarly, the video calls with Detective Vick are off-key and far-fetched — wouldn’t a detective meet the relatives of a missing person face-to-face rather than through Skype?

Searching isn’t for everyone, but if you want to watch something unorthodox and are willing to play by the film's rules, it is a deeply rewarding experience. You will find what you’re looking for. Searching undoubtedly proves that you don't need a big budget, or even a film camera, to make a rich and compelling movie about life in the digital age.