There are many movies that show separate seemingly disconnected storylines and how they tie together. Some of them are bad, some of them are good. The tying together is usually not the important part, nor is it the part that makes or breaks the production; it's the content.
"Disconnect" is a story about three separate storylines that tie together.
Storyline #1: Derek and Cindy Hull (Alexander Skarsgard and Paula Patton) are a couple reeling from the loss of their baby boy. Cindy tries to deal with it through an online support group where she meets another griever named Stephen Schumacher (Michael Nyqvist). After the couple's banking account and credit cards were cleaned out, they were led to believe Schumacher may have been behind the theft.
Storyline #2: Nina Dunham (Andrea Riseborough), an ambitious reporter, contacted an online adult performer named Kyle (Max Thieriot) in order to do an expose' about minors being used to provide online pornographic content. She initially contacted him as though she were a curious woman looking for such content before revealing that she was a reporter. After gaining his trust she got him to do an interview that helped her career, but did very little for him.
Storyline #3: Ben Boyd (Jonah Bobo) was a recluse and a social outcast at school. Two other kids decided to bully him by catfishing him. They took the prank too far when they emotionally manipulated him into sending nude pictures of himself. He reacted by hanging himself which left his family in shambles and his father (Jason Bateman) looking for answers.
The connection between the three is tenuous which is not much of a concern because each story is riveting in its own right. The performances were laudable, and I think this is the way for Jason Bateman. I avoid his comedies because he plays the same role in all of them: the weak, emasculated, straight man (straight as in the deadpan role). Bateman kills it in this drama where I think his style is of much better use.
I'm saying jump on board. This movie draws you in from three different yarns. I was truly hooked on all three storylines and I had no demands upon any of them of where they should take me. Comedy or tragedy, I didn't care because I trusted the movie that much to do the right thing.
"Disconnect" is a story about three separate storylines that tie together.
Storyline #1: Derek and Cindy Hull (Alexander Skarsgard and Paula Patton) are a couple reeling from the loss of their baby boy. Cindy tries to deal with it through an online support group where she meets another griever named Stephen Schumacher (Michael Nyqvist). After the couple's banking account and credit cards were cleaned out, they were led to believe Schumacher may have been behind the theft.
Storyline #2: Nina Dunham (Andrea Riseborough), an ambitious reporter, contacted an online adult performer named Kyle (Max Thieriot) in order to do an expose' about minors being used to provide online pornographic content. She initially contacted him as though she were a curious woman looking for such content before revealing that she was a reporter. After gaining his trust she got him to do an interview that helped her career, but did very little for him.
Storyline #3: Ben Boyd (Jonah Bobo) was a recluse and a social outcast at school. Two other kids decided to bully him by catfishing him. They took the prank too far when they emotionally manipulated him into sending nude pictures of himself. He reacted by hanging himself which left his family in shambles and his father (Jason Bateman) looking for answers.
The connection between the three is tenuous which is not much of a concern because each story is riveting in its own right. The performances were laudable, and I think this is the way for Jason Bateman. I avoid his comedies because he plays the same role in all of them: the weak, emasculated, straight man (straight as in the deadpan role). Bateman kills it in this drama where I think his style is of much better use.
I'm saying jump on board. This movie draws you in from three different yarns. I was truly hooked on all three storylines and I had no demands upon any of them of where they should take me. Comedy or tragedy, I didn't care because I trusted the movie that much to do the right thing.