Life in the Internet Age

Internet-obsessed Men, Women & Children will scare parents to death

The Internet age can often be challenging and confusing, and although some films have touched on aspects of this, no mainstream film has made it the sole focus of the story until Men, Women & Children, the new movie from writer/director Jason Reitman.

Reitman and co-writer Erin Cressida Wilson, working off the novel by Chad Kultgen, explore the of-the-moment topic through a variety of avenues.

Don and Helen Truby (Adam Sandler and Rosemarie Dewitt) are struggling in a listless marriage, and Don often resorts to using his son’s computer to search for porn. That son, Chris (Travis Tope), finds himself helplessly addicted to Internet porn himself, resulting in the inability to relate to real girls.

For anyone who’s currently a parent of a teenager or younger, there are times the film feels akin to horror.

Patricia (Jennifer Garner) monitors every single thing her daughter, Brandy (Kaitlyn Dever), does online or on her phone, a militant devotion she says she’s doing for Brandy’s protection. On the flip side, Donna (Judy Greer) attempts to advance the modeling/acting career of her daughter, Hannah (Olivia Crocicchia), by putting up questionable photos of her on a for-pay website.

Kent (Dean Norris) finds it impossible to relate to his son, Tim (Ansel Elgort), since Tim quit the football team and devoted most of his time to an online role-playing video game. And Allison (Elena Kampouris) derives her self-worth by chatting with people on a pro-anorexia website.

All of these characters live together in one Texas town, leading to multiple crossovers between their individual stories. Reitman devotes an equal amount of time to almost every character, ensuring that each of them gets a chance to become fully developed.

For anyone who’s currently a parent of a teenager or younger, there are times the film feels akin to horror. Although Garner’s character is obviously an extreme example of the overprotective parent, the amount of information, rumors and innuendo with which kids are bombarded nowadays makes her crusade seem almost understandable.

On the flip side, the film rarely seems concerned with how adults actually use the Internet. Aside from Garner’s character, the few times they’re seen interacting with computers or smartphones are fairly pedestrian. It would have been nice to have their storylines be more involved, tech-wise.

And while the film is definitely current, you can’t help but think that, given the speed at which technology moves, the movie won’t already be hopelessly dated within a couple of years. Mentioning Facebook and Twitter is probably safe given their ubiquity, but the use of other real website names could lead to regret.

Ultimately, though, the film is about relationships in this age of seeming disconnectedness. Reitman and Wilson are able to craft a taut drama that makes us care about the fate of almost every single main character, which is no small feat given the number of cast members.

Men, Women & Children may not have many answers as to how to survive in a time when much of our lives plays out online, but as a time capsule look at how people of all ages relate to each other, it’s highly effective.

Jennifer Garner plays the ultimate overprotective parent in Men, Women & Children.

Kaitlyn Dever and Jennifer Garner in Men, Women & Children

Photo by Dale Robinette

Jennifer Garner plays the ultimate overprotective parent in Men, Women & Children.

Movie Review

Daniel Craig searches for elusive new bond in audacious film Queer

Drew Starkey and Daniel Craig in Queer

Photo courtesy of A24

Drew Starkey and Daniel Craig in Queer.

As recently as the late 2010s, if a movie was made about an LGBTQ+ character, it was more than likely about their coming out experience. Romance, if it existed, was typically chaste, and actual sex was almost completely out of the question. Things have changed dramatically in the 2020s, to the point that a major movie star has no issue starring in a film called Queer.

Based on the 1985 novella by William S. Burroughs, the film features William Lee (Daniel Craig), whom everyone calls just Lee, a writer living in 1950s-era Mexico City who spends most of his time haunting local bars with friends like fellow writer Joe Guidry (Jason Schwartzman) and hitting on younger men. His early interactions in the film seem to indicate that Lee has a bad reputation within the local gay community, as multiple people avoid him or give him odd looks.

Lee senses an opportunity when he encounters a newcomer, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey). Despite some awkward interactions, the two of them start spending time together, although Lee has much more invested in the relationship than Eugene does. Their hit-and-miss bond continues until Lee, who’s starting to get into drugs in addition to the booze, convinces Eugene to accompany him on a trip to South America.

Directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes (making their second straight film together after Challengers), early on the film seems to be mostly about the divide between an older person who’s grown comfortable in his ways and a younger person who’s living a relatively carefree life. The introduction of drugs into the plot changes things, though, with Lee searching out more ways to open his eyes to what the world has to offer.

Guadagnino and his team use some interesting visual storytelling techniques to introduce ideas that may not be present in the actual script. The most successful, demonstrated in multiple scenes, is the superimposition of movements by Lee over what’s actually taking place in the scene. The subtle overlay gives the audience insight into Lee’s true feelings, showing what he can’t or won’t say out loud.

Music also plays a big part in how the plot is perceived, with the use of anachronistic songs from Nirvana and Prince serving to heighten certain moments. The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is not as in-your-face as the one they did for Challengers, but it complements the film well, especially when the plot starts to get trippy in its final half hour.

Craig, who appears sweaty and disheveled for much of the film, is about as far from the suaveness of James Bond as you can get in this role. He takes multiple risks with his performance and almost all of them pay off. Starkey’s character is subdued by comparison, but still comes off well. Schwartzman and Lesley Manville are given showy roles, with both using altered appearances that make them nearly unrecognizable to deliver memorable performances.

Queer is not as accessible as Challengers was storytelling-wise, but the fact that it tells a story about gay men living their lives as they see fit with no interference or questions shows how far the film world has come in a short period of time. It also continues Guadagnino’s streak of making audacious films in a way that few other filmmakers are willing or able to approach.

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Queer is now playing in theaters.

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