Disconnect

I never bought into the “good old days” hype that old people always try and slap us with. As far as I am concerned, things have always been messed up. Everything up until the sixties had to deal with slavery, racism, or unreported date rape. The 70’s brought bad fashion and Aerosmith, the 80’s introduced us to AIDS, and the 90’s had the revival of boy bands.  So you can’t blame technology and social media for this apparent disconnect in regards to human interaction; parents have been ignoring their children since we stopped plowing their fields for them. How else do you explain them allowing their children to spend hundreds of dollars on The Backstreet Boys?

The perfect example of this is my best friend in high school. We acted like model citizens around our parents, so much so that they wouldn’t even ask what we were doing as long as we said we were doing something together. It wasn’t until his mom got in his car one day to make a quick run to the store that she started to question some of the things we were into.  His tape deck (yes tape deck) was broken so all he could listen to was the Nirvana In Utero album. And it just so happened that when she got in the car Rape Me was playing, and at a loud volume! And in the classic old people versus technology battle, the old person lost and she couldn’t figure out how to turn it off. Needless to say, from that point on she thought we were sociopaths and grilled us about everything we were doing.

When I first saw the buzz around this film,  I thought it was going to be a preachy story of how the world is going to shit unless we all sit down and actually talk to one another. And to a certain extent is does say that but it really just presents the material for what it is without trying to beat you over the head with a message ala Green Zone. The movie centers around a group of people and how in today’s instant access to everything via phones or notebooks; you really don’t need to or have any desire to personally connect with anyone. It starts off with a reporter going online to chat with an 18 year old boy in his live video sex chat room. It turns out that she wants to do a report on him and his lifestyle but their relationship becomes complicated and turns both of their worlds upside down. Then it shifts it’s focus to two teenage boys deciding to play a prank on a social outcast by creating a fake facebook profile and posing as a girl. Once again things go too far and lead to dire consequences. And lastly, there’s the story of a young couple who is coping with the loss of a child and no longer communicate with each other. So the wife in an attempt to deal with the painful situation reaches out to a support group online and starts a dangerous affair in the process.

All of these stories are happening simultaneously and director Henry Alex Rubin does an excellent job of showing what's happening and how each one is connected while keeping you on the edge of your seat. Just when you think the story is about to reach absurd territory he switches you to the next story and leaves you hanging until he returns to that particular situation. It’s like watching a soap opera with decent actors and a better budget. What keeps this movie from being a cheesy soap opera or even the overrated Crash, is that there isn’t any melodramatic music to hammer home the point he is trying to make.

Well, not until the final climatic scene where out of the blue he decides to film everything in slow motion with blaring indie music. Slow motion pseudo action scenes only work with Milla Jovovich running around with two shotguns. But outside of this major flaw, I liked this movie and suggest that you pop in. A lot of what happens in the film is a true social commentary on our lives and how we approach or even value relationships today. But thankfully you don’t walk out feeling like you deserve a Klondike bar because you survived a 5 second talk with your granddad. I rate this movie as FRESH!

Now on to the important stuff : Yes Andrea Riseborugh who is wonderful in this film, gets naked; Hope Davis is finally starting to look old,  and even though they repeatedly threaten to do so, they never actually show any kids masturbating.