From Vikramaditya Motwane, creator of the Netflix hit series Sacred Games and Bollywood film Lootera, comes a present-day AI thriller CTRL. Is Motwane’s latest worth streaming this weekend? CTRL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? The Gist: Joe (Vihaan Samat) and Nella (Ananya Panday) are the perfect influencer couple: They do everything together, vlog about every minute of it, and enjoy brand deals that exploit their love for capitalism. But when Nella catches Joe cheating on her while livestreaming an anniversary surprise, she decides the only way to have him out of her life is to literally erase him. She signs up for an AI assistant app called CTRL to digitally remove him from all of her photos and videos, but also unknowingly gives the app control to her whole life. Nella soon uncovers a conspiracy within the parent company Mantra, but it’s too late: it’s Nella against the AI, and they’re always three steps ahead of her. What Will It Remind You Of?: Much of the action of the film plays out on Nella’s computer screen, from video calls to email interfaces, which is directly pulled from 2018’s Searching, while the AI-centric story is reminiscent of the award-winning Spike Jonze film Her. Performance Worth Watching: It’s hard to look away from Ananya Panday in CTRL — not because she’s in almost every frame, but because she commands those frames with impressive facial expressions. Memorable Dialogue: “You think you’re in control. Mantra is the only one that’s in control,” Joe says in a recovered video late in the film about the evil tech corporation Mantra at the center of the drama. It echoes giants like Google who prey on the fact that no one reads terms and conditions, and who are routinely sued for their monopoly within the tech space. Sex and Skin: No sex or skin in this one. Our Take: The downsides of AI has been the topic of conversation in our increasingly tech-focused world. ChatGPT is replacing writing jobs, deepfakes using the images and voices of public figures are increasingly common, and the tech companies at the top aren’t held to any rules while the medium continues to innovate and iterate. It’s also been one of the top concerns in Hollywood storytelling for the past two decades: I, Robot (which is terrifyingly set in 2035) and Her are just two potential outcomes of AI gaining autonomy, which is the direction our world is headed. But it’s been awhile since we’ve had a film that feels grounded in the present and that really considers the consequences of AI in its current form. Enter CTRL. The Hindi-language film from Vikramaditya Motwane is an unsettling portrait of what our obsession and addiction to technology and devices can do, and why we should all be wary about what companies like Google, Microsoft, and Apple are doing with our personal data. Though the film initially seems like a meditation on the pitfalls of social media, it smartly transitions to a larger commentary on technology after Joe and Nella’s breakup. The AI assistant that Nella creates — cleverly named Allen — balances the charm and creepiness well, especially in moments where the AI is totally listening into a conversation it shouldn’t be. Allen constantly refreshes and gives a smarmy toothy smile as Nella gets pulled into a conspiracy plot, and you can almost see the literal wheels turning within the CTRL interface. Panday and Samat are both great, though Panday steals the show with her grounded performance. She hams it up when required when putting her “influencer” hat on, but easily dials it down to show us the human side of Nella as well. Acting in small portions of the screen is a tough ask (Nella is often seen in the corner of her screen via video, while her email or other activity take up most of the real estate) but Panday manages to make the most of her close-ups. The toughest part of the film to land is the conspiracy behind Mantra, which boils down to a capitalistic ploy to literally own their consumers. This beat felt a little half-baked to me, as I think many of us already feel like we are beholden to these corporations that dictate our way of life. For all that happens in the third act of the film, I found this explanation to be a bit flimsy in an otherwise fast-paced and sturdy story. But even with a small misstep, there is so much to like and enjoy about CTRL. It’s thought-provoking, dynamic, and prescient in today’s world, and absolutely worth a watch. Our Call: STREAM IT. Topical and eerily plausible, CTRL is a smart tech thriller with a great central performance from Panday. Radhika Menon (@menonrad) is a TV-obsessed writer based in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared on Paste Magazine, Teen Vogue, Vulture and more. At any given moment, she can ruminate at length over Friday Night Lights, the University of Michigan, and the perfect slice of pizza. You may call her Rad.
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