The bogeyman takes many forms. You’d be wise to pay attention to me; I just need your full name and social security number … Disconnect explores the evil of the mundane unknown – the people you contact through computers. “Explore” is being generous; I’d say Disconnect is flat out saying, “don’t you dare share anything personal through a keyboard, ever!”
Three distinct stories outline the caution: one in which two pre-pubescent assholes pose as an attractive coed to abuse a loner (Jonah Bobo), the second involves a grieving couple (Alexander Skarsgård & Paula Patton) who suddenly discover the joys of stolen identity and the third involves a hot investigative reporter (Andrea Riseborough) using an underage sex-by-camera worker (Max Thieriot) to get a national scoop. The loner is the hardest story to watch – sad to say I’ve been on both ends of this type of anonymous emotional manipulation; the people who do it are souls more lost Reverend Al Sharpton at a Klan rally. And this message speaks the loudest: assume nothing when anonymity is involved. Of course, technically that’s the message
of all three tales.
Paula Patton’s tale might hit closest to home for the elder set. She’s lost a baby and can’t speak to her emotionally-distant husband about it. In desperate need of connection, she joins a group on-line and shares, perhaps, more than is safe. When the couple gets floored by internet theft, the investigator Mike (Frank Grillo) turns his research on private matters into full b&w reports for both non-parents. Try explaining to your spouse that you’ve told a complete stranger how intimate you aren’t. This is both the strength and the weakness of Disconnect – we feel for people pouring their hearts into their typed words, and the film is quite clearly telling us to stop doing that. Yet the people themselves are faaaaaaaar more alive and connected when they are focused on a screen than they are in “real life.” This can’t be more evident than when the Boyd family sits down to dinner, all four together, and nary a one wants to be at the table – there is magic on-line being missed.
Director Henry Alex Rubin is very computer savvy, but it’s clear he sees internet information exchange as much more a danger than a boon. He is pointedly encouraging us to seek face-to-face relationships. Go get out of the box and into the world. He has a point, no? On the other hand, however, the internet is an invaluable tool for cultivating relationships among the shy, the introverted, the hopelessly depressed. There are literally millions out there who cannot be cured simply by getting out there. For them, the anonymous connections they make are lifeblood; the internet is the greatest tool man ever invented.
Many conversations in Disconnect take place by computer. We see what a character has written in real time with keystrokes, just like you’re watching subtitles. We also get very expressive faces. This is classic “reaction” acting and extremely well done here. Jason Bateman has played an uptight father for roughly 47 movies in a row, but this was the very first time I actually felt him communicate as if outside a shell – and ironically, little of this communication is spoken face-to-face. Agree or disagree, there’s a very deep social statement being made here and it’s nice that Bateman can be part of it, rather than making another Change Up. Ugh.
The computer is not your friend,
Attention to a box you lend
Is where shit just happened
You’d better not once hit “send”
The computer is not your friend.
Rated R, 115 Minutes
D: Henry Alex Rubin
W: Andrew Stern
Genre: Trust nobody you can’t shake hands with
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Parents of video obsessed kids
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Introverts
