In her short career, Ananya Panday has been the most impressive in a film about social media. In Arjun Varain Singh’s Kho Gaye Hum Kahan (2023), Panday is wholly convincing as well as a Gen Z exemplar struggling to balance her perfect public persona with her messy self.
In Vikramaditya Motwane’s new movie CTRL, Panday is once again superb as a social media influencer trapped between the real and the make-believe. Motwane’s Hindi movie cleverly deploys its young cast for a thought-provoking examination of the sinister aspects of artificial intelligence.
Nella (Panday) and Joe (Vihaan Samat) are best friends, lovers and business partners. Together, they create schmaltzy moments that boost their online profiles that are then parleyed into lucrative influencer videos. If there ever was a line between love and work, it has been long been erased for this camera-friendly couple.
A bump in the relationship compels Nella into signing away her privacy to an app called CTRL. The AI avatar Allen (voiced by Aparshakti Khurana) promises to be a new friend, philosopher and guide. Just as surely as Allen is an anagram for Nella, CTRL isn’t the tech Utopia Nella thinks it is.
The 99-minute screenlife movie is based on a story by Avinash Sampath and a screenplay by Sampath and Motwane. CTRL takes its place among a recently minted category of storytelling that captures the omniscience of communication devices in daily life.
In screenlife cinema, the visuals are based on what characters see on their cellphones, computers and laptops. The aesthetic of CTRL too is entirely guided by Nella’s messages, virtual interactions and the videos that she shoots. Even her conversations with her only other friend Bina (Devika Vatsa) take place over video calls.
This gripping update of George Orwell’s 1984 and the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind via sci-fi horror fiction is brilliantly realised. Through seamless visual effects and Pratik Shah’s cinematography, Motwane faithfully recreates Nella’s pixelated existence. When the movie steps out of Nella’s virtual bubble into a flesh-and-blood world, the contrast is stark.
The overall sense of plasticity masquerading as the real thing extends to the AI avatar Allen, which has an unnerving way of bobbing its head while communicating with Nella. Aparshakti Khurana neatly voices the soothing-voiced Allen, whose friendliness borders on creepiness.
Motwane’s virtuoso technical design is especially attentive to the ways in which social media dynamics influence Nella – the snarky comments and emojis that flood her timeline, the instant reactions to her missteps, the fake warmth of the glow from her computer screen. The film’s dialogue is by the comedian Sumukhi Suresh. Several of Suresh’s peers, from Tanmay Bhat to Rohan Joshi, play versions of online vultures feasting on Nella’s anguish.
After an excellent beginning and a strong middle portion, Motwane’s film weakens when the grand conspiracy behind the AI app is eventually revealed. Having taken us towards a Black Mirror-style tech dystopia, CTRL lingers at the edge, unwilling to go all the way.
Yet, the movie manages to smuggle in commentary about Indian political realities in the same manner that the AI app inserts itself into Nella’s laptop. From a distance, within a plot that channels generational angst about all-pervasive technology, CTRL points to false evidence being planted on the devices of the human rights activists accused of fomenting violence in the Bhima Koregaon conspiracy case.
Also read:
Vikramaditya Motwane explains why his film ‘CTRL’ was a ‘time-consuming but fun geek-fest’
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