New Delhi: Conjuring up a life that plays out in a virtual space – in other words, setting up a gauzy existence that floats in a dimension far removed from the real and the tangible – has its wages. Vikramaditya Motwane’s inventive, sparky CTRL examines the nature and extent of the toll that burrowing into a rabbit hole of constructed personas and enhanced engagements can extract.
Nella Awasthi (Ananya Panday, suitably sprightly), a Delhi girl who has been in Mumbai for six years, discovers the hard way that there is infinitely more to life than reels, brands, subscribers and likes. Not that the film is looking to preach to a flock. Who does not already know what is at stake in a digital life?
The Netflix film throws spiky ideas and pointed asides into the air. Some land, some don’t. But each, in its own way, contributes to the chaotic, experiential and unlike-anything-we-have-seen-before composite canvas that CTRL creates.
Written by Avinash Sampath and Motwane on the basis of a story by the former, the screenlife thriller is a raspy, zippy, quirky film that only rarely pauses for breath. It helps that Ananya Panday, coming off Call Me Bae, where, too, she played a young woman compelled to descend to earth from her perch in the clouds, takes to the role like fish to water.
The dizzying rhythm of CTRL, substantial parts of which are delivered in the form of interactions on connected digital devices, approximates the youthful exuberance and momentum of Nella’s charmed life. The girl is on a roll but there are hurdles ahead. The warning signals elude her attention until it is too late.
CTRL, in spirit and substance, reinforces Motwane’s proven penchant for turning an established genre on its head. He did just that in Trapped, Bhavesh Joshi Superhero and AK vs AK with varying degrees of success. Since these films were experiments with form and narrative conventions, their commercial (or critical) fate is immaterial.
That is pretty much true of CTRL. It is a fearless throw of the cinematic dice. It rolls in exciting and surprising directions. The result is an uncategorisable film that is equal parts entertaining and sobering. That is not to say that everyone who watches it will be instantly taken with it. But that can never be the point about a film like CTRL, which does its own thing in its own way, like it or lump it.
It isn’t angling for instant gratification even though the protagonist of the film, who exists and thrives in a penumbra between real emotions and fake impulses in a hyperconnected world where human-to-human links, mediated by tech entities of predator-level dimensions, are at best tenuous, would be nothing but for the swelling support that she garners on social media.
CTRL follows Nella and her boyfriend of five years, Joe Mascarenhas (Vihaan Samat). The two successful influencers have it all: a rock-steady relationship, an official community channel called NJoy that thrives with significant brands and a growing number of subscribers coming on board to push the endeavour higher and higher, and a life of limitless possibilities.
Joe is a techie whose know-how is the backbone of the channel. Nella, the daughter of a bakery owner who has cut off all ties with his daughter since she upped and quit Delhi, is the face that keeps NJoy going.
So smooth is their relationship that it elicits both admiration and envy. Someone get me a Joe, a follower says. Sooner or later, they will f**k it up, comments another. Is the Nella and Joe combo too good to last? The influence of their channel keeps growing and the couple moves from a small pad in Jogeshwari to a swanky, spacious apartment in Bandra – a sure sign of their thriving social media partnership. “Hamara ghar,” exults Nella.
And then it all snaps in an instant. Isn’t that the nature of the beast? Joe cheats on Nella. The act and its ugly aftermath are caught on Nella’s livestream, a set-up she planned as a surprise for Joe on the fifth anniversary of their first date. The sorry turn of events boomerangs more on the girl than on the boy. She is skewered by trolls and blamed for the breakup.
An infuriated Nella resolves to wipe the slate clean and give a fresh start a shot. In the process, and before she realizes it, she cedes control of her life to a virtual entity that has a male face – voiced by Aparshakti Khurrana – but no tactile presence.
Nella signs up on an AI platform, CTRL, with the aim of erasing the long, telltale digital trail that her relationship with Joe has left on various platforms. She is assigned an AI assistant. She names it Allen – a palindrome for Nella. Allen offers to help her take control of her “life and happiness”.
Nella instructs Allen to erase Joe from all her photos on the Internet. Allen does her bidding. Joe duly disappears from the tens of thousands of photos and videos posted by Nella over the past five years, beginning with one particularly cheesy frame that has her smitten boyfriend in a rock cutout costume and Nella in a fish headgear. The ardour – and silliness – of youthful love is now gone forever.
Does the erasure of Joe’s existence from her digital past deliver Nella from the blue funk she is in? It does, but only momentarily. Matters spirals totally out of her control and, in the harsh world that Nella is hurled back into, an alarming chain of events sends the girl’s life into a sharp plummet.
As one thing follows another, Allen’s words, “always there for you”, ostensibly meant to be an assurance, assumes the ring of an ominous warning. She realizes that she has ceded control to a force she can no longer rein in. It reaches a point when somebody can look her in the eye and assert, “We own you.”
Sumukhi Suresh’s dialogue, Pratik Shah’s cinematography (tailored to the medium to perfection) and Jahaan Noble’s editing, which goes from frisky to firm to convey the process of the euphoria of a love giving way to the disconcerting consequences of the blurring of the line between the virtual and the real, stand CTRL in good stead.
Can a cautionary tale with tragic twists be fun? CTRL is. It is never less than lively even as it chastens.