DOC NYC film review: 'Finding Yingying'

Image courtesy of DOC NYC.

The true crime documentary 'Finding Yingying' (screening at DOC NYC 2020) begins as a search for a young woman and becomes the search for justice, driven by a family's desperate hope to bring their daughter home.

In short: After Chinese student Yingying Zhang goes missing on an American university campus, her family travels to the U.S. for the first time, hoping to unravel the mystery of her disappearance.

The problem with true crime documentaries, as a subgenre, is they tend to be locked in the specificity of a time and a specific event. So many have the feel and tone of a less-sensational episode of 'Dateline' or '48 Hours.' While 'Finding Yingying' remains totally committed to student's disappearance, it comes at the cost of not exploring broader social themes that could have added depth to the story.

There's a moment where 'Finding' alludes to the increased number Chinese nationals studying in the United State and the fact that these students often do not feel safe in America. The isolation these foreign students feel while living in another country, far from friends and family, is a theme that is hinted at ... but never fully explored. Similarly, 'Finding' intimates at the family's frustration with the difference between the American and Chinese justice systems - but that thought is fleeting.

Thankfully, just when it feels like 'Finding Yingying' is about to fall into the well-worn rut of the true crime category, the documentary evolves into a more compelling film as it chronicles the toll Yingying's disappearance has taken on her family. It's obvious filmmaker Jiayan 'Jenny' Shi has earned the trust of Yingying's family - allowing the documentarian to capture candid moments of raw, emotional honesty. Any editor can just stitch together some hasty interviews and news coverage clips, but Shi's film becomes more substantial once she follows the film back home to China.

From start to finish, the Zhang family is the focal point of this documentary. The documentary resists the urge to try to find answers in the 'why' of what happened - which is often a fruitless exercise that defies reason and shifts focus to the predator rather than the victim. Shi's film only gives the criminal element the minimal exposure needed, opting to follow the family's inconsolable anguish. The Zhang family is a totally normal family - and it's this "ordinary" element that makes the crime all the more chilling: what happened to Yingying could easily happen to any girl and any family.

Final verdict: If the job of any documentary is, in the strictest sense, to document a subject, then 'Finding Yingying' is about as fine a true crime documentary as is possible for the subgenre.

Score: 3/5

'Finding Yingying' screens during DOC NYC 2020. This documentary not yet rated and has a running time of 98 minutes.