Jason Reitman's Men, Women and Children is a reflection of communication pertaining to the revolutionary digital era. The culturally appropriate content matter pays homage to the 21st century “Zeitgeist”, presenting a hallucinatory and uncomfortably factual silhouette of the means in which we connect - or rather, the inability to - with one another given the abundance of technology at our fingertips.
A surprisingly cast Adam Sandler for the male lead, Don’s characterization is a singular example as to how the character themes present highlight the newfound ignorance of human inability to communicate: an introverted schlep subject to an agamic relationship with wife, Helen (Rosemarie DeWitt). A moment deep upon being introduced to the two characters, Helen painstakingly catches Don sneaking into their son's quarters to further divulge in Don’s virtual porn addiction. Meanwhile, his wife ironically struggles with sexual frustration and the …show more content…
Personally regarded as the most important character, helping to further validate the films communication theory, Tim (Ansel Elgort) is a star running back who elected to quit the football team in favor of investing his time in online role-playing games. Tim's interpretation of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot (a recurring theme throughout the film) is that nothing matters in the grand scheme of things, so why bother investing in a "pointless" activity like football? He's much more content to form connections with other like-minded individuals in a virtual world, while growing increasingly distant from his father (Dean Norris), who continues to cope with the sudden departure of Tim's mother the previous