Disconnect

Disconnect (2013) is a drama thriller you can watch online on iFILM. Several lives intersect around the same painful idea: people reach for one another through phone screens and chat windows, and the very tools meant to connect them pull them apart. It's the first scripted feature from documentary filmmaker Henry Alex Rubin.

Two boys build a fake online profile as a cruel prank and push a lonely classmate to the brink. A TV reporter tracks down a teenager performing on an adults-only webcam site and can't keep her distance. A grieving couple turns to the internet for comfort and walks straight into a scammer who drains their accounts. The threads tighten into one knot of guilt and panic. The ensemble brings Jason Bateman in a rare dramatic turn, alongside Alexander Skarsgård, Paula Patton, Andrea Riseborough, and Mikael Nyqvist.

Rubin shoots it raw and handheld, then cranks the final act into almost unbearable tension as several crises detonate at once. The film unsettles rather than lectures, and it hits a genuine nerve. Stream Disconnect (2013) online on iFILM.