7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.6 |
A hard-working lawyer, attached to his cell phone, can't find the time to communicate with his family. An estranged couple uses the internet as a means to escape from their lifeless marriage. A widowed ex-cop struggles to raise a mischievous son who cyber-bullies a classmate. An ambitious journalist sees a career-making story in a teen that performs on an adult-only site. They are strangers, neighbors and colleagues and their stories collide in this compelling drama about ordinary people desperate for a human connection.
Starring: Jason Bateman, Andrea Riseborough, Alexander Skarsgård, Hope Davis, Frank GrilloThriller | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English, English SDH, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
UV digital copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
It’s getting harder and harder to remember a time when there wasn’t an internet, though some of us (ahem) are old enough to recall those halcyon days of handwritten (or typed) letters, phone calls via devices that were attached to a wall, and actual interpersonal relationships where you talked to people you were sitting next to. The sea change the internet has brought is truly amazing to those of us who spent at least part of our lives without being tethered to either a computer or a handheld mobile device. Some of those changes have been manifestly for the better. The sense of instant communication is awesome, and the fact that some of us can work from home for an internet based business is freeing beyond all measure (though it also means some of us “work” with people we’ve never actually met face to face). On the other hand, there’s also a sense of anonymity, whether warranted or not, that both shields people but which also depersonalizes and perhaps even demoralizes them. Disconnect offers a hodge podge of stories which ultimately more or less intersect but which all have to do with various uses of the internet and the dangers that use can bring. This first feature screenplay by Andrew Stern posits three sets of people whose lives intersect—if only tangentially—in a cascading series of events that finds all of them dealing with the aftereffects of hazards borne by the internet. While two of the stories have a visceral impact, at least for audience members who are parents and may have incipient fears about their children and dangers real or imagined, the third tale is somewhat less fully realized and also less compelling.
Disconnect is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Perhaps surprisingly for a digitally shot feature of such recent vintage, Disconnect rarely pops with the vivacity that some might expect of such an effort. Many sequences appear washed out, with a kind of milky overlay robbing the image of sufficient contrast, color saturation and fine detail. Some of the close-ups, however, are amazingly clear and brilliantly detailed (see the first screenshot for a great example). This is yet another contemporary film where the director and perhaps the DP have gone a bit overboard with color grading, and once again we're offered a bifurcated approach that tends to ping pong between cooler blue tones and warmer amber hues. While there's nothing truly objectionable or problematic here, this high definition presentation is surprisingly restrained and kind of blah looking.
Disconnect's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is nuanced, if often quite subtle, utilizing surround activity mostly for Max Richter's minimalist score and for scenes like the crowded lunchroom sequence where Ben gets the supposed lewd "sext" from his fake girlfriend or a supposedly surreptitious meeting between Nina and Kyle which takes place outdoors. The film is really made up of smaller dialogue moments for the most part, and this track supports those faithfully, if without a lot of immersion. Fidelity is excellent, though there's not much dynamic range here.
Disconnect is certainly a worthy enterprise and one which has something important to say about the fractious nature of contemporary, internet based, life. The film is perhaps too scattershot for its own good, however, and some of Rubin's directorial choices become frustrating and even annoying after awhile. But the performances are uniformly excellent, especially Bateman, Grillo and a heartbreaking Bobo, who defies the film's tenor of emotional distance and is able to reach out and touch the audience, if only for a moment or two. This is a flawed film on several levels, but it's also a really interesting one. While this Blu-ray features a kind of lackluster video presentation, my personal assessment is that, warts and all, Disconnect is Recommended.
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