“Discover how little you know”

Has technology made us more violent? More promiscuous? Is it easier to cheat with a little help from the internet? How dangerous are online games? Is it okay for a mother to essentially spy on her daughter? Is romance dead because of technology? Does social media reveal too much about us? With a boom in the use of texts, Facebook, Twitter, and all sorts of other platforms, it is everyone who has been affected in some ways, by the advancement of technology. Men, women, children, regardless your gender and age, Jason Reitman’s newest feature is one that looks at how living in the modern world keeping up with the same struggles as before looks like.

So yes, we get the insecure teenage girl who has weight issues wanting to attract the attention of a boy whose mind is only on one thing. We have an adorkable ex-high school football star from a broken home who is addicted to online gaming. A young girl whose smothering (“can’t spell mother without it”) mother, who might as well call herself the National Security Agency, is watching her every move. A young girl who yearns to be a great big star in L.A. An unhappy married couple who look elsewhere to find some much-needed pleasure. And why not throw in their 15-year-old son, whose unhealthy obsession with pornography is starting to affect his sex life, when it comes to actually having to perform.

There is of course an element of technology thrown into all the plot-strands at one point or another. The film cleverly utilises pop-ups of texts/tweets/posts/messages and everything else as a way of communication. What the characters in the film send off to one another, we get to see. The audience is doing a spying of our own too. And the focus is undeniably limited. For a film that wants to look at how social media is affecting/interfering/enhancing our lives, the scope is too narrow, and each plot strand is a quick, simplistic view of a soapy storyline with some flashy effects thrown in. Just reading the character list above should give you a clear idea as to how the film is not offering anything new for us.

Yes, the internet makes it easier for Don (Adam Sandler) to look for an escort, giving the anatomical specifics to be his near-perfect mating partner. His wife Helen (Rosemarie DeWitt) uses a dating website that encourages married couples to cheat. There she meets “Secretluvur” (Dennis Haysbert), with whom she can try some cringe-worthy, awkward dirty talking. Their son Chris’ (Travis Tope) internet search history is quite something, with certainly a hint of fetish for domination. Allison (Elena Kampouris) refuses to eat, and she has an army of fanatics trying to be as thin as possible giving her some questionable advice. Patricia (Jennifer Garner), so worried that her daughter Brandy (Kaitlyn Dever) is growing up, does a weekly sweep of everything. This includes Facebook, phone, etc whilst her husband, who may as well not have been written into the film since his role is so miniscule, stands by and watches. Seriously. Tim (Ansel Elgort) finds out his mother, who abandoned her family to go live with her boyfriend, is now engaged. He finds this out through his Facebook newsfeed. His interest in football has hit rock bottom, despite him being a talented player, and all he cares about now is Guild of War, and his father Kent (Dean Norris), who had big dreams for him as a football star, is of course disappointed. Hannah (Olivia Crocicchia) takes risqué photos, uploading them online for her website which her “clients” thank her for. The one taking her pictures? Her mother Donna (Judy Greer). Yes. She believes these photos of her scantily-clad daughter are to help with her future ambition of becoming a star. Who is the nuttier one out of Garner and Greer? You decide.

Establishing the concept of what this film is all about is done in a very effective manner. As we see one character use some sort of technology in his/her life, we move on to the next, and another one after that. We see their problems clearly, we see the influence of technology, but as the film begins to develop into a more dramatic one, steering away from the lighter mood, it slowly becomes something incredibly familiar. The fights and tears all happen at the exact moments you would expect them too, and there is little surprising about the outcomes and how the individual strand wraps up.

Despite the predictable setting, there is a reason this film works. It is mainly thanks to the humour that serves as the film’s major saving grace. To start off with, having Emma Thompson intermittently narrate the events of the film was such a genius move that you wish there was more of it. Thompson has that very dry but witty delivery of some shocking narration, all said in a tone that does not seem to bother her one bit.

Reitman has an impeccable cast at his disposal. Despite some actions that may seem very, very unlikely, the actors in the roles play them with so much conviction that it is easy to believe people like this can exist. Garner’s is a piece of work, restricting her daughter in the interest of mostly her selfish well-being. She is the kind of mother who will make you feel better about yours. She takes the prize on delivering the most “WTF” moments in a film that she will make you want to throw things at her. And there are simply no words to describe what she gets up to towards the end of the film. Sandler and DeWitt make their sexless marriage that is devoid of any inkling of passion work, and rounding off the adult cast, Greer and Norris too have their more dramatic burst to completely own.

There are plenty of laughs to be had, although very few of them are actually due to a funny, happy event occurring. No, these are uncomfortable, nervous laughs of utter shock and disbelief, which can be the best kind of laughs, when used correctly. There are so many embarrassing things that go wrong in these people’s lives, that the automatic reaction in the screening cinema was laughter.

More impressive however are the younger members of the cast. Elgort, a rising star hot off his success with the _Divergent _franchise and The Fault in Our Stars, is excellent, he’s a very good crier too, as the depressed high school student finding his way back into the world. He has a very glib outlook on life, as anyone in his position would, but he eventually starts connecting with Brandy. Her role here is surprisingly under-written, although the actress playing the part, Dever, has great chemistry with her scene partner. The psyche behind an oppressed child, why she acts out as strangely as she does, is never fully addressed, and we are supposed to simply accept that if you have a controlling mother, it is only natural for a daughter to be as quirky as this. Crocicchia is convincing playing the exact same role Mena Suvari did in American Beauty, and, Kampouris, looking painfully thin, is at times heart-breaking to watch, with her desperation and idealistic view on love getting her into trouble.

It’s ultimately a formulaic picture, but one that is not short on laughs. All the strands finish exactly the way you would expect them to, and no character is immune from having either a soapy meltdown or revelation. What the film wants to say about the influence of technology is, very limited and it fails to fully explore this frankly overcrowded ensemble. As with most things with Jason Reitman’s name on it, it looks at a serious subject matter and decides to have some fun with it along the way; and fun is what Men Women & Children has an abundance of.