Disconnect (Henry-Alex Rubin, 2012): USA

Reviewed by Lauren Jackson. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival 2013.

Starring several well known actors such as, Jason Bateman, Max Thieriot,  and others, Disconnect gives us a collaboration of about 3 different views and stories of several different lives where towards the center of the film make some sort of a connection to one another.

I decided to attend the premiere with little knowing of what the film would be about. And little did I expect to become overcome with tears once it’s running time of 115 min. had come to an end.

The two story Arlington Theater left not one seat available the night it premiered on a Saturday night (Jan. 24, 2013). I was lucky enough to have gotten a front row seat on the balcony after waiting in a long line out front. We were then introduced to Henry-Alex Rubin, director of Disconnect, he said few words of appreciation, then the curtains drew and we were all then completely transfixed to see what would happen next.

Disconnect, about an anti-social boy with a passion for music, runs into trouble when he runs into an online made-up girl, Jessica. Jessica, a girl created by two other young boys attending the same high school as the musical boy, decide to mess with the poor kid. They begin exchanging texts and online messages quite daily throughout the film, showing letters type out in  time to what the actors might be typing with the use of computer, phone, or ipad. Soon, the kids start getting too far and serious, asking each other personal questions and for nude photos. Soon, it happens, and then they think it funny once they send the photo through a mass text having the entire high school seeing it. The boy gets picked on, and embarrassed to a point where he tries to hang himself in his room. He is sent to the hospital in which he stays till the end of the film. At this point the parents, mainly the fathers get involved.

At the same time, we have a reporter trying to connect with a boy who lives and works in a house filled with other kids his age and younger trying to make a living by recording themselves live doing nudity on internet tv (webcam). She finds this one boy and decides to instead, try to make good conversation. At one point, she gets an interview with him, then decides to help him further.

Anyways, this is my first review, the film itself I thought was very good. Very dramatic-got me emotional in some areas. Especially with the whole love that went on between families.

If you want to see a good film in which has multiple stories eventually come to a spike and then draw back down..well, this film in general is just worth seeing.