Searching for Sonny
2011 film by Andrew Disney

Searching for Sonny is a 2011 independent film and the feature film debut of writer/director Andrew Disney. The film released on October 22, 2011 and stars Jason Dohring as one of several people involved in a murder mystery.
Plot
Elliott (Jason Dohring), Calvin (Nick Kocher), Gary (Brian McElhaney) and Eden (Minka Kelly), find themselves chief suspects in a murder mystery at their ten-year high school reunion. The events surrounding the disappearance of their friend Sonny (Masi Oka), is reminiscent of a high school play they once performed, coincidentally written by Sonny himself. Deception leads to scandal and the truth surfaces as the friends learn that shady businessmen and school officials are involved in a complex scheme of money and murder.
Cast
Jason Dohring as Elliot Knight
Minka Kelly as Eden Mercer
Masi Oka as Sonny Bosco
Michael Hogan as Principal Faden
Nick Kocher as Calvin Knight
Brian McElhaney as Gary Noble
Clarke Peters as The Narrator
Mackinlee Waddell as Maggie Phillips
Brandon Thornton as Zack Hayes
Kristin Sutton as Cynthia Schubert
Reception
Critical reception for Searching for Sonny has been mostly positive and The Hollywood Reporter summed the film up as "Quirky, comic film noir proves yet again that high school reunions never turn out well." Much of the film's praise centered around the film's acting and directing, and the Oklahoma Gazette commented that Disney's work helped to make the film look "like several million dollars were poured into the thing".
“Searching for Sonny” enters the record as 2011 film by Andrew Disney. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Searching, Sonny and film can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Searching for Sonny” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Searching, Sonny and film provides the most credible route into that argument.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q12127352. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2011.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Searching for Sonny”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Searching for Sonny primary sources, Searching for Sonny archive and Searching research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Searching for Sonny”?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Searching for Sonny” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.