In equal parts, vulnerable and vain, wholly real, Ananya Panday literally owns this space. As she does the film, that she’s in practically every frame of, from start to finish
A still from CTRL
Movie: CTRL
On: Netflix
Dir: Vikramaditya Motwane
Cast: Ananya Panday, Vihaan Samat
Rating: 3.5/5
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If there were too many Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, as in copy-paste filmmakers in the world—naturally inclined towards a certain style, or recurring theme/thought in their storytelling— Vikramaditya Motwane, the director of CTRL, is easily the furthest from it.
His last film, that I’ve yet to watch, is a documentary, India(r)a’s Emergency. Right after a mockumentary (AK vs AK), that followed a super-hero flick (Bhavesh Joshi), and a one-room, one-actor drama (Trapped), before that.
CTRL has been described by the filmmakers themselves as a screen-life thriller. Or what one would call a computer-screen movie. Which is a film that goes from script, to screen, to screen, to screen…
That is, switching between various screen devices—phone, laptop, CCTV—from where the characters respond to events, or interact with each other.
In short, the camera is both the lens, and the prime location.
This movie starts off following the lives of a cutesy, GenZ, committed couple who, from Day One of dating, have decided to overshare every moment of their lives, online—turning, hence, into ‘influencers’ that brands, in turn, can potentially profit from, since the eyeballs are already on them.
This is reflective enough of a social media culture. Which is what, if not us, truly living inside the profoundly prophetic Truman Show (1998)—whether as ‘content
creators’, or addicted voyeurs; no?
What about the girlfriend-boyfriend (Ananya Panday, Vihaan Samat), who naturally derive audiences from painting the rosiest picture of their love/relationship, until the boy gets caught, cheating, on camera?
Beyond the boy, it appears to me that the girl is sadder for the fact of losing her social media currency, as a result of this public embarrassment.
That currency equals real money, after all—for whatever that says about the reality of relationships, in a predominantly virtual world.
Have you seen a real-life couple like Nella-Joe from this film? There’s one in the Netflix documentary series, Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal (2024), wherein a YouTuber influencer couple, Sam-Neil, similarly document their married life for clicks online.
The guy’s name showed up on the list of blokes on Ashley Madison, a site exclusively for married people to hook up. That data got breached in 2015. The girl, if I recall right, was eventually okay to have him back. There was far more to lose than a marriage, in this case!
No such luck for Joe (Samat), with Nella (Panday). He’s deeply apologetic for a stray incident, as it were! She may seem obsessed with public attention.
Otherwise, she’s not too different from any other youngling, who’s a native to the Internet. Still, with her heart and emotions in the same place.
After Call Me Bae, a quasi-sassy comedy-drama series (2024; Prime), and Arjun Varain Singh’s engaging Kho Gaye Hum Kahan (2023; Netflix), this is Panday’s third piece of content that surveys the lives of GenZ/late millennials, perennially at the intersection of an offline and online world, that they inhabit simultaneously.
This could be a coincidence. Although the conscious choice of a subject/subject to pick is not.
That said, I can’t think of a legit, Bollywood lead/established female actor, more suited than Panday—equally a star-level influencer in her own right (25 million followers on Insta), in her mid-20s—for a part that captures the zeitgeist, or spirit of the social-media age, we live in.
If anything, she might be more search resource, or muse, for Motwane, 47, on this story by Avinash Sampath (AK v AK), with stand-up comedian Sumukhi Suresh on the peppy dialogues.
In equal parts, vulnerable and vain, wholly real, Panday literally owns this space. As she does the film, that she’s in practically every frame of, from start to finish.
I’m told CTRL got shot over 16 days, with post-production work that took 16 months! Which makes screen-life, technically, a tough genre to tame.
Russian-Kazakh filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov (Unfriended) is supposed to be the genre’s global ambassador of sorts. He’s an exec-producer on CTRL, that isn’t India’s first such mainstream feature.
That applause ought to go to Mahesh Narayan’s fine, Fahadh Faasil starrer, CU Soon (2020). Which was a much darker, claustrophobic thriller.
CTRL feels more relatable, next-door; fun, really—also given Sneha Khanwalkar’s supremely zingy soundtrack, covering ’80s pop, hip-hop, ballads, even Prateek Kuhad, ie, “South Bombay’s Arijit Singh,” as a friend puts it well.
I suspect this is why, when the film switches to a wider commentary on AI, dystopian data-mining, et al, you sense the ambition hardly matching the mood/theme thus far.
No knock on the big message on big tech. Surely, you’ve read and watched enough to freak the hell out on it, starting with the Netflix doc, The Social Dilemma (2020), of course.
I’m just unsure it fits in as seamlessly, without seeming slightly floozy, into the film, that I’ve watched twice, already—on TV, and phone. The latter offers a more intimate experience.
As you notice the final five minutes’ passage, of no dialogues—influencer retreating to rank anonymity, checking her notifications gone silent, feeling lost in the real world…
The sort of melancholy that made us love Her (2013) so much. And a director totally in control.
Accept it: screen life is real life. Nothing futuristic about it anymore. In fact, it affects the old, who are migrants to the Internet, as much as the young.
CTRL could do with an encore. In a reverse sort of way, that would be the surprise, if Motwane pulls a sequel on his filmography!
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