Men, Women and Children

Of all the disconnects between the characters in Men, Women and Children, none is as big as that between the audience and the film itself.

The latest from director Jason Reitman (Up in the Air) is an ensemble drama filled with big ideas about how our reliance on technology has harmed interpersonal relationships, fueled an proliferation of online sex and pornography, and led to teenagers obsessing about self-esteem and body image.

That subject matter might be topical, but such observations are hardly breakthroughs in a world of cyberbullying and short attention spans (not to mention the 2012 film Disconnect). And to make matters worse, most of these characters are are exaggerations and caricatures intended to prove a point rather than convey emotional honesty. In other words, their intelligence feels rather artificial.

The film follows the intertwining stories of a handful of Texas high school students and parents struggling to relate to one another. While the adults are growing apart, the kids are growing up too fast. For example, there’s the boy (Ansel Elgort) who plays video games instead of football to escape his depression, the anorexic girl (Elena Kampouris) just trying to get noticed, the aspiring model (Olivia Crocicchia) who wants to jump-start her career, and the social outcast (Kaitlyn Dever) dealing with the perils of an overprotective mother (Jennifer Garner).

The best moments tend to involve the adults, whose stories are too often shortchanged by the formulaic antics of the overprivileged suburban teens whose heads are constantly buried in their phones. Adam Sandler and Rosemarie DeWitt are solid as a couple with a fading marriage, while Judy Greer and Dean Norris are given moments to shine as single parents making questionable choices.

The screenplay by Reitman and Erin Cressida Wilson (Chloe), based on a novel by Chad Kultgen, is sincere but muddled as it works itself into a paranoid hysteria, trying to juggle so many subplots that it becomes especially clumsy trying to tie up all the loose ends in a way that doesn’t feel manipulative or sentimental.

By that point, the film strains to feel edgy and relevant, and it’s not as profound as it aspires to be. Ultimately we’re left with some fleeting moments of amusement that lack the ability to connect together, and that’s something to which the characters can relate.

Rated R, 119 minutes.