It's conversation provoking.
Men, Women, and Children
Grade: B
Director: Jason Reitman (Juno)
Screenplay: Reitman, Erin Cressida Wilson (Chloe) form Chad Kultgen novel
Cast: Adam Sandler (Blended), Jennifer Garner (Dallas Buyer's Club)
Rating: R
Runtime: 119 min.
by John DeSando
“For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.” Carl Sagan
Although the disquieting Men, Women, and Children is about the social problems wrought by the internet as experienced by a large cast of teens and adults, the real subject is human relationships. The topic-filled film does a credible job laying out challenges, of which there are too many, but little remedy for almost all. I guess the net is so relatively new, say in reference to Carl Sagan’s globe represented by the pale blue dot of the famous Voyager picture, that we’ll not expunge its demons until much later in our future, if ever.
Don Truby (Adam Sandler—an understated but effective performance), in a limping marriage, seeks a prostitute on line; his wife, Helen (Rosemary DeWitt), seeks adulterous companionship through the Ashley Madison site. While they have the deepest emotional problems in the film (most others involve teens going through a litany of difficulties, as to be expected), they effectively represent a thesis that the real problem is not the internet but the people.
The vehicles are the mobile device and the laptop/PC, but the conflict usually comes between parents and teens, often about freedom. Director Jason Reitman skillfully shows that real, direct communication is at a premium and lack of it at the heart of dysfunction. For instance, a mother (Jennifer Garner) who monitors too closely her daughter’s communications to protect her misses the fact that the monster she is protecting her from is herself. This film also touches on the existential concerns about individual responsibility and character, which for Carl Sagan would be set against the vast cosmos.
f you want to catalogue the challenges the internet has brought, then see the conversation-provoking Men, Women, and Children. If you want to remedy the problems, pray.
“The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent.” Carl Sagan
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
