“New York is a dysfunctional relationship itself,” a woman laments in Pacho Velez’s Searchers, a cinematic sociological study of online dating via the POV of a wide range of New Yorkers during the 2020 Covid-19 summer. (The doc by the co-director, with Sierra Pettengill, of 2017’s The Reagan Show – which I raved about on this site – premiered in the NEXT section at this winter’s likewise digital Sundance Film Festival.) She goes on to note that the one positive thing about lockdown is the chance to enjoy the apartment that you spent nearly all your income on but rarely use. (Which reminded this expat New Yorker that though I will forever heart NYC, it’s also a high-maintenance relationship. A realization that led me to the conclusion several years back that it’d likely just be healthier if we were to amicably live apart.)
Black and white, gay and straight, male, female and gender nonconforming, twenty-somethings and octogenarians, all individually come before Velez’s lens to disclose their romantic dreams; while simultaneously and monotonously looking, judging and swiping (the familiar ritual inventively captured through a camera setup that allows the “searcher” to reach out and “touch” those of us watching on this side of the phone/movie screen). We listen to a Black gay man wonder about the lack of men of color on a site as he scrolls discontentedly – only to later hear how his longest relationship ended. He and his partner met online but eventually got too busy to see each other in person, their physical connection incrementally disappearing as work and family priorities took hold. Though a lesbian posits that once you do meet a promising partner offline you end up not really dating a person. “You’re dating a person’s issues.”
All drama aside, Searchers slowly reveals the stark reality that there’s a distance even the most efficient algorithm can never bridge. If there’s one thing that all these incredibly diverse participants seem to share it’s that none appear to see the person on the other side as an actual flesh and blood being. This thus renders their sometimes scathing critiques (one man coldly dismisses a potential partner due to a large forehead) as clinical as a film review. Which, counterintuitively, allows Velez’s no frills, sterile visuals to actually speak volumes – as does the lovingly interspersed imagery of couples on the NYC streets during the awkwardly masked and socially distanced dog days. Ultimately, what Searchers gives us is not a guide to best practices of online dating, nor any kind of character study at all. It’s simply a feature-length microcosm of what we miss with the loss of IRL connection. A loss we’re currently forced to embrace in the new pandemic world.