I recently watched the movie Disconnect, a 2013 movie about three scenarios where the digital world collides with people’s personal lives. The different scenarios include cyber bullying, identity theft, and online prostitution. The movie holds a nervous tension the entire film, truly showing the dark side of how people can be exploited, robbed, and emotionally damaged by other faceless people across the Internet.
The movie is sad but also eye-opening to some of the pain the victims feel as they suffer through the different situations. Not only are the victims shown but also the people surrounding them and sometimes the desperate circumstances they have to go through are depicted in the movie.
Disconnect is an emotional movie but one worth watching if you can handle the dark, gritty sides of life and a movie that may not have a happy ending. Perhaps it’s overly dramatized, but it’s also presented as a raw access to the character’s emotions. The movie has all three scenarios weaving together with characters overlapping in each other’s lives. Some of the language and content, particularly related to the online prostitution scenario, is graphic and mature-natured. This is unfortunate because I feel like the cyber-bully section of the movie could be very worthwhile for teens and high schoolers to watch. Disconnect feels like Crash centered around the topic of the Internet and all of our connections to the world.
The cyberbullying scenario is probably my favorite of the scenarios. The online prostitution case is compelling but difficult to fully comprehend all of the ins and outs. The identity theft case is also difficult to completely follow its escalation. Discussing them in more detail would be unfair to spoil any of the details and careful storytelling.
Disconnect is available on DVD.
