Screenlife filmmaking, the method of telling a cinematic story fully via characters’ pc screens, is the sort of gimmick that’s often unhealthy in concept and is worse in follow. There are sensible exceptions, however the pandemic yr we spent watching mediocre tv produced over Zoom and the period of time many people are nonetheless professionally obligated to spend on video calls is sufficient to make watching them for pleasure sound like a frightening proposition.
The format is finest recognized for the movies “Unfriended” and “Looking,” each of which have been produced by Timur Bekmambetov, who has gone all in on Screenlife storytelling. The area of interest mogul can also be behind “LifeHack,” Ronan Corrigan’s directorial debut that tries to present FaceTime screens and Discord servers the “Ocean’s 11” remedy.
For Kyle (Georgie Farmer), the Web is the last word playground. Smarter and savvier about digital areas then nearly anybody else he encounters on-line, he spends his days detecting on-line scams and scamming them again earlier than they’ve an opportunity to harm anybody. He’s the Robin Hood of shitposting, however the 17-year-old feels a ridiculous (however relatable) strain to realize one thing huge by the age of 19, when so lots of his heroes launched their very own tech startups. The one downside is that he doesn’t have any concepts to match his ambition.
In the event you can’t construct one thing, you would possibly as effectively steal from others, and he and his Discord buddies Alex, Sid, and Petey quickly give you a plan. Chaotic billionaire and clear Elon Musk stand-in Don Heard (Charlie Creed-Miles) has been recklessly speaking about his crypto investments, main Kyle to imagine that there’s a strategy to monitor down his pockets and steal his funds utilizing solely publicly out there info. They rapidly devise a rip-off that begins with constructing a web based presence for a faux modeling company, signing his daughter (Jessica Reynolds) as a consumer (which requires her father’s signature since she’s beneath 21), utilizing the non-public data in her contract to hack into Don’s cellphone and have his quantity moved to a brand new sim card, perusing his notes app to search out his passwords, and opening his crypto pockets and transferring $100,000 value of a memecoin into Kyle’s account.
It goes off with out a hitch, however they think there’s loads extra the place that got here from. The foursome are quickly in cahoots with Don’s estranged daughter, who rapidly caught onto their plan and enlists their assist stealing one other $20 million from him. A much bigger plan requires larger logistics, and after they’re compelled to bodily break into his workplace (nonetheless proven over FaceTime screens, in fact), they entice the sort of legislation enforcement consideration that would derail their grownup lives earlier than they also have a likelihood to start out them.
The Screenlife format received’t be for everybody, however “LifeHack” distinguishes itself from its more and more repetitive predecessors with the enjoyment and vitality that it captures in its polymath characters. To Kyle and his band of thieves, the web isn’t an isolation chamber, it’s the place the place they honestly really feel probably the most at residence. Zippy modifying and an lively rating ensures that the movie by no means stalls for lengthy sufficient to really feel like doomscrolling, and the characters’ lack of life expertise permits them to show even probably the most severe of subjects into an enormous joke. It generally performs like a far-less unsettling model of Concord Korine’s “Child Invasion,” sucking you into an addictively rhythmic crime spree that unfolds towards a backdrop of hundreds of reddit tabs and JPEG thumbnails.
I’ve my doubts that Screenlife will ever really transcend gimmick standing. Moviegoers have all the time appeared to cinema for escapes from mundanity, and lots of the most mundane components of our lives exist in these hole digital communication strategies. However “LifeHack” might be very convincing in its argument that youthful generations would possibly really feel in a different way. The web is the closest factor these teenage cyberthieves must an actual life, and Corrigan’s dopamine onslaught of a movie is an genuine portrait of probably the most alive they’ve ever been.
Grade: B
“LifeHack” premiered at SXSW 2025. It’s at the moment looking for U.S. distribution.
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