CTRL Review: Masterful Thriller

Sukanya Verma recommends watching CTRL on a computer for an eerie, immersive, real-time experience.

Unsettling, isn't it?

Our most reliable source of information and communication can be programmed to keep tabs on our mind and movement across the multiple devices that have become indispensable crutches of modern living.

But then the Internet has always been a seductive, if not secure, space where all its gifts come with its share of dangers.

From sharing personal details about oneself on chats with complete strangers, unwittingly downloading software that gives clear passage to malware and bugs, falling prey to sophisticated phishing scams or divulging private data every single time we thoughtlessly tick a Terms and Conditions checkbox, there's a constant element of risk and ruin in romancing the gods of cyberspace.

Technology's curse and boon remains the same. It advances but the problem is never in its possibilities as much as the greed of its wielder, which conditions us to believe if you're not in, you're out.

It's especially true for Gen Z, which hasn't known a world where information arrived at a leisurely pace and free from the prerequisites of instant gratification.

Living in a digital age of social media sensations where folks have made a career out of putting their entire life online, emotions are substantiated in likes, followers and subscriptions, the slightest absence of an emoji in a text may suggest apathy or annoyance and one can assume any avatar or hide behind a façade to troll whomsoever they please, or create funny memes or viral videos parodying a gaffe.

What's more disconcerting is the seamless manner in which Artificial Intelligence-powered tools have steadily taken hold of our daily lives, a dependency none of us can deny or escape.

Vikramaditya Motwane's riveting, masterful CTRL, penned by Avinash Sampath, uses this prevailing landscape of handy Apps and manipulative tech to craft a cautionary thriller about a pair of influencers caught in its grasp.

Motwane's cynical probe into the grim realities of online existence evokes Black Mirror's tech-fuelled dystopia, something Dibakar Banerjee's Love Sex Dhoka sequel attempted as well in his paranoid anthology.

CTRL is gentler in its explorations and carries echoes of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind's heartbreaking impulses in Nella (Ananya Panday) and Joe's (Vihaan Samat) journey from couple goals to Ctrl+Alt+Del.

Poster Girl of Gen Z world and woes, Ananya bares her vulnerability before the camera from all possible angles, never once conscious of the unflattering closeups, in a performance that looks her back in the face while curled up in a corner.

She's done proving.

It's time to take the acting adventure, heads on, girl.

Vihaan's outbursts are the action scenes of CTRL.

The clarity in his discontentment as well as the integrity he conveys even when in the wrong says a promising lot about him.

Only recently the duo portrayed a young marriage gone kaput in the TV series Call Me Bae, which makes their lived-in chemistry as young people dating each other since first year of college all the more credible.

Active consumers of the social media circuit will vouch for the authenticity of Nella and Joe's VBlog shenanigans as well as the blitzkrieg of hearts and heart-eyed emoticons they are showered with.

Tech Tuesdays with Uncle Nellesh are the best.

But a certain 'minty_2414' predicts it will all go bust and that's exactly what happens when Nella catches Joe fooling around in public view, triggering a public meltdown.

The screenplay just goes kapow capturing her distress -- trolls treating women as soft targets as usual, fresh fish to fry mentality of standup comics, a disgruntled boyfriend expressing his disapproval for the 'public consumption' aspect of their private relationship or Nella's rap-sized retaliation conjuring MTV-era videos and aesthetic.

The geeks behind CTRL's on screen wizardry have a ball giving these turn of events a gut-punching authenticity before revealing the star of its show, Allen (voiced by a frighteningly authentic Aparshakti Khurrana), a AI-enabled assistant, kind of like a BonziBuddy (1990s kids will know) capable of far more lethal mischief, offering to erase Joe's unwanted presence from Nella's heart and hard drive.

Outside the virtual world, there are graver issues at large, which come to light after Nella learns Joe's gone missing.

What starts out as a satire about a generation obsessed with posturing and the ridiculous nature of instantaneous celebrity transforms into a sci-fi thriller of whistleblowing pursuits and corporate data theft.

Aside from the fear of impending doom when AI gains absolute foothold, Vikramaditya Motwane deeply sympathises with the unseen isolation of broadcasted lives.

Motwane and wife Ishika making several thumbnail-sized cameos (you might spot their pal Anurag Kashyap too) as part of CTRL's animated interface, has the visuals and its homegrown texture down pat.

But the real tech-savviness of his screenlife format, where the storytelling unfolds entirely on computer and cell phone screens, shows in how he builds nail-biting moments over scenes of password recovery and sneaky virtual assistants.

That constant feeling of being heard, seen, traced and tracked, whenever a subject of search or discussion is caught on by an algorithm to throw up ads and offers, is conspicuous throughout the course of CTRL's claustrophobic captivity.

I would recommend watching it on a computer for an eerie, immersive, real-time experience.

It's a small world and we all became its pitiful, pathetic prisoners by choice the moment we ticked I Agree.

CTRL streams on Netflix.