The other side of Technology and Social Networking
Yes, we all are dependent on Technology in every aspect of our life.If you look back and think, you can’t even take a step without Technology in modern world. Without communication technology our life seems to be meaningless. But there is another side of it, the darker side and the bitter truth about how it affects us, our lives and families. Disconnect, an American drama-thriller film directed by Henry Alex Rubin is all about that. It portrays the negative effect of internet and social networking in the form of three parallel stories connected by a common subject.
The first story is about a reporter Nina who meets an underage male stripper Kyle through video chatting with the purpose of interviewing him. She was able to convince Kyle to share his story (with a promise of not revealing his identity) to reach to a wider section of people and obviously to ensure her own professional growth. Her mission became successful and she got what she reached out for, but things completely took a different turn with the involvement of FBI which puts Nina’s and Kyle’s lives into jeopardy. The story is about mutual trust, betrayal and conflicts of morality in human relationship.
The second story which is my favorite among the three is a heartbreaking tale of love, hatred,redemption and father-son relationship where a simple immature act ruins people’s lives. It begins with two school mates Jason and Frye who creates a fake profile on a social networking site to lure an introvert teenager Ben (whose father Rich shares a professional relationship with Nina). They provoke Ben to send an obscene photograph in the site which they distribute in the school. When Ben becomes aware of this, he is unable to gather the courage to face its consequences and attempts suicide. Well, to know about the rest, you have to watch the film.
The third and the final story is about a couple Cindy and Derek who find it really difficult to come to terms after the death of their only child and it impacts their personal relationship as well. Cindy is a regular member of an online support group website for lonely, helpless people in search of hope and happiness. In this process, Cindy makes friendship with another person who has lost his wife. But the couple’s world is turned upside down when using their online credentials someone steals huge amount for their bank. Derek hires a private detective named Mike (Jason’s father), determined to catch the person behind this crime. Mike informs him that the person who was chatting with Cindy is the one behind this burglary but since police doesn’t have any definite proof, he cannot catch the person right now. What follows is a tale of twists about three people suffering from pain and grief.
Disconnect is not particularly an outstanding film and the subject or even the treatment is nothing new. I have seen movies with similar subject lines, but, it’s the performances of the ensemble cast and the parallel screenplay of the three stories that makes the film interesting and quite watchable. However the film has its loopholes and some portions of the film looked a bit dragged and incoherent. Specially, I really didn’t find any logic in the impatience and desperation of Derek to find the burglar or why the two kids didn’t even delete the messages after Ben’s incident.
However, there a couple of scenes I really cherished: like the scene where Mike confronts his son regarding Ben and later deleting the fake profile to save his son and where Nina meets Kyle outside the motel trying her best to bring him out of the trap but not ready to put him in her house. There is one beautifully shot slow-motion action sequence shown in parallel in each of the three stories at the climax.
Overall Disconnect is a decent one time watch. I didn’t have huge expectations about it and hence had a nice time throughout.
Cinema Paradiso 