REVIEW - INREALLIFE

I'm one of those oddballs who like to be challenged when they watch a film. Maybe not all the time, but certainly when that film is a documentary about the effects, both social and societal, of the internet on human life. I found myself agreeing with Beeban Kidron's InRealLife, and also disagreeing with it. But I did not find myself challenged. I went in with an expectation of the slant Kidron's film might take, maybe not a valid expectation, but definitely a validated one. There's nothing wrong with a documentary that pitches for one side of the argument and ignores the other as long as the other side is not especially relevant in the context (think 5 Broken Cameras). But Kidron's approach here is to edit and to censor almost any reference to the notion of digital social media constituting a positive factor in the lives of today's youth. The heartstrings get a good tugging as her camera zooms in, her gentle, pitying voice prompting answers she knows she can extract from her teenage interviewees (each markedly better-informed and, tellingly, more reasonable and objective than herself), all fuel for the fire she's secretly burning behind the lens. Note that the majority of the experts she features are middle-aged, and literary authors. Once Kidron stops condescending, her focus shifts to other regions of the internet, and if her points remain repetitive and one-sided, she's at least on firmer ground here, ethically. And, like the rest of this film, she's in total control of the medium, crafting a documentary that's engrossing and technically competent. But she's way off the mark when it comes to her patronising concern for kids. Here's the thing, Ms. Kidron: the internet is an integral part of contemporary society, whether you choose to participate as thoroughly as many youths do or not. But who gives a fuck how much porn a teenage boy watches, or how much Xbox he plays? You're no concerned adult, you're a nosy, supercilious, rather clueless adult, and you don't know what you're talking about.

I'll never post anything as bad as this video again, promise.