Men, Women and Children takes a morose look at the damage we’re doing to ourselves through online addiction

MOVIE review: It’s Adam Sandler, but thankfully not as you know him, in the solid ensemble drama Men, Women and Children.

Men, Women & Children (MA15+)

Director: Jason Reitman (Juno)

Starring: Ansel Elgort, Adam Sandler, Jennifer Garner, Rosemarie DeWitt.

Rating: 3 stars

This much we already know: we now live in a totally connected world. And yet, we are more disconnected from each other than we have ever been.

Do the maths. An increasing number of people are spending more time per day looking at a digital screen than at the world happening all around them.

I could go on. But that is really the job of Men, Women & Children, a floaty, feelbad lament for a time when angst and alienation were only available in analog formats.

This casually morose drama multi-plots its misery around a set of families living in the same suburb in Texas.

Each has a kid or two whose life is slowly going off the rails as a result of being constantly online.

A high school football hero (Ansel Elgort) has turned his back on sport for a total immersion in virtual gaming.

Online but disconnected ... Ansel Elgort plays Tim Mooney and Kaitlyn Dever plays Brandy Beltmeyer Men, Women and Children.

A fellow teenage student (Travis Tope) has frazzled his future sexuality after becoming addicted to internet pornography at the onset of puberty.

His would-be girlfriend (Olivia Crocicchia) is earning pocket money posing for photographs requested by strangers online.

One of her friends (Elena Kampouris) is wasting away to nothing at the urging of other young women she meets in a pro-anorexic chat room.

If the children of Men, Women & Children are having a tough time exploring desolate new cyber-frontiers, their elders are simply hopelessly lost.

Such as the couple (Adam Sandler and Rosemarie DeWitt) that mangles what’s left of their marriage by trawling the ‘net for new sexual partners.

Rosemarie DeWitt and Adam Sandler as Heleln and Don Truby, a couple whose relationship is destroyed by the internet. Picture: Paramount Pictures / Chocolate Milk Pictures.

As you may have gathered, Men, Woman and Children’s primary concern is reminding us how the internet has made life easier and sleazier for all who use it.

That one thought is underlined over and over again, just in case you might have missed the point (or were busy checking your social media feeds).

As beautifully acted as the film proves to be, the sheer repetition of the ugly message the film wishes to convey does become wearing after a while.

By the close, Men, Women & Children feels a lot like an ensemble drama about the common cold: as there is no known cure, all it can really do is list the symptoms.

Originally published as Men, Women and Children takes a morose look at the damage we’re doing to ourselves through online addiction