Film Review: “Men, Women, and Children”

Jason Reitman, of Thank You for Smoking and Juno, brings us his latest comment on modern society: Men, Women, and Children.

This film follows the lives of several teenagers and their parents, befitting the title. It focuses on the constraints of our technological world, loss of human connection, with an overarching theme of insignificance. The cast is extensive, including Adam Sandler, Jennifer Garner, Dean Norris (Hank of Breaking Bad), and Ansel Elgort (The Fault in Our Stars). Emma Thompson voices over the film occasionally.

Men, Women, and Children focuses on four families. Don and Helen Truby (Adam Sandler and Rosemarie DeWitt) have a troubled marriage which leads them both to infidelity. Their son, Chris (Travis Tope) struggles with an addiction to internet porn and resulting impotence. Chris' love interest is Hannah Clint (Olivia Crocicchia), who is an aspiring actress and model. Hannah‘s friend, Allison Doss (Elena Kampouri), struggles with an eating disorder. Hannah's mother, Joan (Judy Greer), was also once a struggling actress who hopes to give her daughter the opportunities she never had. To help jumpstart Hannah's career Joan sets up a website to display headshots and occasionally takes photo request from (sketchy) online fans. Joan's love interest is Kent Mooney (Dean Norris). Kent's wife abandoned their family to move to California. His son, Tim (Ansel Elgort), recently gave up his high-school football career in favor of video games and existentialism. His growing depression is apparent throughout the film. Tim's love interest, Brandy Beltmeyer (Kaitlyn Dever), has a mother, Patricia (Jennifer Garner), who tracks her on social media. Patricia checks her daughter's computer and phone every night, reading messages and scanning for unwholesome behavior or unwanted attention.

The biggest problem in Men, Women, and Children is the lack of cohesion. The themes are scattered and dull. On the surface, it attempts to attack technology and its effect on our generation and our parents'. It might succeed at doing so if it stuck to one story line. Some of the problems faced by the characters cannot possibly be traced back to their cell phone. Don and Helen have grown tired of their lives and each other. This is a simple plot adding very little to the movie as a whole. There is a lot of that in this movie: extra. Extra characters, extra storylines, extra voices, extra themes…

Emma Thompson narrates this film, sometimes over a scene and sometimes coupled with the image of a satellite hurling through space. The narration and imagery are equally useless and poorly executed. The images of space draw in yet another, not-so-subtle, theme. Life is meaningless. Earth is inconsequential. The voiceover undermines the film's brooding tone.  Ansel Elgort's character brings the themes of technology and meaninglessness together. He has an obsession with video games and questions his existence. This theme has not only been done before, but done much better. In addition to the loathsome space scenes the production quality of the rest of the film is sub-par. The incorporation of technology into the scenes (i.e. text bubbles over people's heads to depict what they're seeing on their phone) is not graceful. The intention is obvious, but not well executed. It looks clunky and a little silly, detracting from the film's dark tone. The acting is standard, nothing horrible, and nothing groundbreaking. The abundance of characters leaves each with little screen time, but also little time to mess things up which works to the movie's advantage.

Men, Women, and Children's lack of direction, plethora of storylines, and absurd Stranger Than Fiction-esque voiceover leaves the film with little substance or clear endpoint. The themes are confusing. The acting is just okay.  The plots are too many and too contrived. The narration doesn't fit. Everything seems forced, like it could be out of an after school special on PBS or Lifetime.