Disconnect is a 2012 drama directed by Henry Alex Rubin starring Jason Bateman, Alexander Skarsgård and Michael Nyqvist. A film with three interconnecting stories, Nina Dunham, Jason and his friend Frye, and Derek and Cindy all go through their own misadventures while dealing with the negative consequences of modern communication technology.
This film provides examples of:
- Armor-Piercing Question: When Bateman's character gets all worked up about the fake chat account, his wife asks him if that would help anything to make Ben wake up upon which there is a long silence.
- Blowing Smoke Rings: Kyle is able to produce smoke rings.
- Bungled Suicide: Kind of. Ben tries to hang himself in his room but his sister intervenes. He then goes into coma and it's not clear by the end if he'll ever wake up again.
- Circle of Shame: Ben unwittingly walks down the corridor of his school while everyone is looking at him. It's only after he sees the photo on a cellphone that he realises what's going on.
- Conscience Makes You Go Back: Jason is taken aback by what happened and goes to visit Ben at the hospital.
- Deadly Prank: Jason and Frye's prank on Ben takes a dark turn when the latter hangs himself in shame over what happened.
- Diegetic Switch: When Ben's father starts listening to his son's home recording, the cover song of Max Richter's "On the Nature of Daylight" fades to the real song playing on the soundtrack.
- Driven to Suicide: The nude pic of himself distributed across the school drives Ben to commit suicide.
- Eating Lunch Alone: Despite what he writes in his chat message to Jessica, Ben is seen eating his lunch all alone at school.
- Establishing Character Moment: An early scene establishes Jason and Frye as scrupulous pranksters when they make a bodybuilder at the local gym drink an isotonic beverage with their piss in it.
- Flirtatious Smack on the Ass: Kyle smacks Nina on the butt when he comes to visit her in her apartment.
- G.I.R.L.: Ben gets trolled hard by Jason and Frye who use a fake online account under the name of "Jessica Rhony" to win his trust and reveal intimate details about himself.
- Headphones Equal Isolation: Ben is a loner who wears headphones to isolate himself from the outside world.
- Hyperlink Story: There are three stories playing out in parallel with Rich Boyd connecting to Nina's plot in his profession as a lawyer and Mike Dixon connecting to Cindy and Derek Hull's story by being their private detective.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Jason promises his father that he did not play with his tablet, only for the tablet to give off a ping indicating that he must have been active on it.
- Intrepid Reporter: Nancy, investigating a case of minors being employed in the camwhore industry.
- Married to the Job: Jason Bateman's life circles around his job making him neglect his son in the process. His son's suicide attempt makes him wake up to the fact.
- Missing Mom: Jason mentions that he suffers from the loss of his mother.
- Parallel Porn Titles: Cindy jokingly suggests Children of the Cornhole upon which her husband responds with Sperms of Endearment.
- The Password Is Always "Swordfish": Cindy's online password was her birthday which made it easy for the hacker to get access to her data.
- Platonic Prostitution: Nina only wants to talk to Kyle and not watch him jerk off. Justified as she is actually investigating for a story.
- Popcultural Osmosis Failure: Jason and Frye never heard of Ben's favorite band Sigur Rós indicating how culturally disconnected they are from another.
- Pop-Up Texting: In order for the audience to follow the chat conversations, some of its content is displayed as on screen text.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Kyle gives one to Nina at the end, pointing out that she is the one exploiting people and not his boss Harvey.
- Ripped from the Phone Book: Ben's father rips the page with Jason's picture from the school's year book for later use.
- Social Media Is Bad: The film tells three interconnected social media stories, all about how it's difficult to incorporate your social media presence with your "disconnected" offline life. The stories tackle themes like cyberbullying, identity fraud, screen addiction, and cam strippers.
- Spiteful Spit: Ben's sister spits on her friend's face when it turns out the latter doesn't care a bit about her situation. Leads to a moment of Stunned Silence.
- Would Hit a Girl: Harvey smacks Nina hard.
