We like to think that we live in a world of perpetual connection. With our access to computers and phones, escape from loneliness appears to be only a click away, but in reality, technology has made us possibly more isolated than ever. Disconnect takes this theory and explores how desensitized we have become.

The film revolves around three parallel plots, minimally linked through shared characters. The first story centers on the Boyds, an affluent family headed by a loving but distracted father (Jason Bateman). Together with his wife (Hope Davis) and daughter (Haley Ramm), Boyd must deal with severe consequences as the youngest in the family (Jonah Bobo) becomes the target of cruelcyberbullies. The second is about a married but growingly distant couple (Paula Patton and AlexanderSkarsgård) attempting to find the man who stole their identities, leaving them on the verge of ruin. Lastly, the movie looks into the life of an ambitious reporter (Andrea Riseborough) who develops a relationship with an adult-chat-room performer (Max Thieriot) in an attempt to capture a career-changing story.

While each of the three stories suffers from problems spurred on by the universal obsession with technology, the film is not actually about technology. Instead, the cell phones and laptops only serve as catalysts for opening conflicts that delve into deeper themes. The film’s story and its resulting message do not contain any novel ideas about the relationship between humans and technology, but this does not detract from the overall experience. Rather than pushing the envelope, the stories on screen are ones that we have heard about before or have experienced ourselves.

What furthers this feeling of familiarity are the performances of the actors themselves. While each of the three stories is quite distinct, the audience should have no trouble relating to them on some level.

Academy Award-nominated director Henry Alex Rubin sought to make a film that would have an eavesdropped quality to it. In his first narrative feature, Rubin employed a variety of techniques from his past experience with making documentaries to provide that sense of realism. He allowed for the actors to keep going after delivering their lines, using some improvisation to help them reach a higher level of genuine emotion.

This film is an extended glimpse into closed and private lives dealing with everyday struggles. In one particularly moving scene, Rich Boyd unknowingly chats with his son’s tormentor (Colin Ford). Instead of actual spoken dialogue, the two are miles apart, communicating via instant messaging. The two sit on their computers, the words they type flowing across the screen. The conversation about fatherhood and familiarity demonstrates one of the film’s greatest strengths. Rather than describe some moral lesson about the dangers of technology, it shows that technology itself is not inherently something that disconnects. Its consequences come from the ways we abuse it, but it also contains the potential to achieve its original purpose: connecting people.

Disconnect is a movie about modern human relationships. It shows that despite how far we may think we have progressed, we all still seek the comfort of others in times of loneliness. Like a mirror, it reflects both the normalcy and discrepancy of our everyday lives. This film, rather than dealing with the dangers of technology, focuses instead on the dangers within ourselves and the difficult challenges that arise when we try to escape the loneliness and reconnect with the ones we love.