A movie review written by: Dorotea Blažinčić
The whole world of today is living in a digital world, due to incredible technological
advancements, but also to the worldwide pandemic. This technical revolution has affected
people’s everyday lives, and while it may appear that life has become easier for us because
everything is available to us at all times, the issue is if this means we have forgotten what real life is and how to live in real life when the gadgets are switched off.
The movie Unplugging is a 2022 American comedy directed by Debra Neil-Fisher and
written by Brad Morris and Matt Walsh. It stars Matt Walsh, Eva Longoria, Lea Thompson,
Keith David, Nicole Byer, and Al Madrigal. The movie was released on April 22, 2022, by
Vertical Entertainment. The premise centers around Jeanine and Dan (Longoria and Walsh), a happily married couple raising their teenage daughter (Finley) in Chicago. Jeanine is a busy commercial leasing director and former attorney who is tied to her iPhone 24 hours a day, seven days a week, while Dan operates a hot sauce micro-business out of the family garage. Unfortunately, the “happily” aspect of their marriage is at risk of collapsing thanks to familial technocracy. When Jeanine’s supervisor forces her to take a two-week “mandatory vacation” after one too many office emails, Dan decides what this relationship needs is a digital detox: a three-day weekend in the countryside with no phones, tablets, or other distracting gadgetry. It’s just the two of them in a rustic cabin in the woods, with no mobile service to complicate matters. The escape appears to be working for a moment, but they’ve both snuck into their phones, resulting in an anxious quest for a signal.
I decided to watch this film because I wanted to see how life works when we entirely
disengage from social media, which is something I deal with daily. I had high hopes, but was
disappointed. The narrative of the film is very predictable, if not quite dull. Although the
movie was labeled as a romantic comedy, it was neither romantic nor humorous. The main
characters, portrayed by Longoria and Walsh, are good enough to keep things interesting, but Unplugging seems to lose its way. This is especially obvious at the end when things slow down and focus on conveying a deeper point. It puts Unplugging in an awkward position. The film has no issue bringing the absurdity (the most notable example being a sequence featuring a chicken taking aspirin), yet it also appears to have something to say. As a result, the plot is totally inconsistent and more confusing than anything else.
To summarize, I would not recommend this film. Although the film’s concept was good and
likely worth discussing further, the production was disastrous. Instead of the storyline
focusing on something specific and developing it until the end, we get a few different
interpretations of many things, none of which are completed. The film is unfinished, and after 94 minutes, all I can say is, “I should have been the one doing the unplugging.”