Men, Women & Children

Beginning with the Voyager probe drifting through space as Emma Thompson narrates, Jason Reitman's Men, Women & Children opens with a lot of scope, though my primary worry walking into  this ensemble piece, was if it would actually provide an intriguing dialogue on our technologically connected lives or simply be forced along by cliched themes.

Chris Truby (Travis Tope) is a porn-addicted teenager whose parents, Don (Adam Sandler) and Helen (Rosemarie DeWitt) are having marriage issues, and begin to form their own relationships behind each others backs. Chris is attracted to Hannah Clint (Olivia Crocicchia), a self-obsessed teenager who is attempting to become famous through any means necessary, be it reality television or the racy modelling website she runs with her mother, Joan (Judy Greer). One of Hannah's friends, Allison (Elena Kampouris) is so determined to attract her love-interest that she puts herself on an extreme diet that transforms her to borderline anorexic.

Tim Mooney (Ansel Elgort), another student at the school, has quit the football team, against his father's (Dean Norris) wishes. Tim is dealing with abandonment issues (his mother left both him and his father to chase another man to L.A) by immersing himself in an online video game, Guild Wars. Eventually Tim gains the attention of Brandy Beltmeyer (Kaitlyn Dever) who is similarly dislocated from the world around her due to her mother's (Jennifer Garner) controlling attitude to her use of the Internet. Much of the story is told through text messages and digital on-screen overlays that attempt to highlight our society's reliance on, and immersion in social media, with both positive and negative consequences.

This film could be more accurately described as Sex, Teenagers & Pornography. It's up there with the Wolf of Wall Street in sexual references (although obviously a vastly different context) and whilst it does begin to focus more on the men and the women towards the end, the vast majority of it plays out as a teenage driven story about sexual experiences, pregnancy, anorexia, divorce, video games...the list goes on. Whilst these themes work well in the various character arcs, it's not as if they haven't been explored before...many times...even by Reitman himself. The use of on-screen messages to convey certain moments of the story often works beautifully and is one of the (sadly few) defining features of Men, Women & Children.

With a large cast of fantastic actors, and Adam Sandler, Men, Women & Children certainly doesn't have any issues with creating believable characters. Dean Norris was a standout for me as Kent, the troubled father who becomes more and more dissociated with his son. Jennifer Garner is fine, despite playing a soulless and generally uninteresting character. J.K. Simmons is fantastic yet completely underused in his small role, and as much as I may joke about him, Adam Sandler is surprisingly strong as Don, one of the more interesting characters out of the adults.

Just as strong though, are the teenagers, who really do dominate this film. Travis Tope and Ansel Elgort, whilst playing very different characters, both provide fantastic performances. Crocicchia and Kampouris are similarly playing roles at separate ends of the spectrum, and although they're both very good, Allison is a far more interesting character than the vain Hannah.

Men, Women & Children  is another of Reitman's social commentaries, and whilst the formula may be well and truly worn by now, the all-round fantastic performances and interesting use of social media themes save it from falling completely flat.