The fiction-film directorial debut for Henry Alex Rubin (Murderball, one of the greatest documentaries of this millennium), the movie doesn’t feel like a preachy lesson à la David Schwimmer’s Trust; it’s more of a is-what-it-is look, however voyeuristic, at the way everyday people get tangled in the web.

Disconnect opens today exclusively at AMC Quail Springs Mall 24, 2501 W. Memorial.

Rubin’s camera flows freely among three interconnecting stories (too interconnected, but required for this style of storytelling): a cyberbullied teen (Jonah Bobo, Crazy, Stupid, Love.), a network reporter (Andrea Riseborough, Oblivion) pursuing an interview with a porn-cam performer (Max Thieriot, TV’s Bates Motel), and a grieving couple (Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol’s Paula Patton and Battleship’s Alexander Skarsgård) wiped out by financial fraud.

That is the order audiences are likely to find most to least interesting, and lucky for fans of the ever-versatile Jason Bateman (Identity Thief), he plays a part in the best two. While known for comedy, he’s excellent in this dramatic role of a successful attorney and not-as-successful father.

Landing between the brilliance of Traffic and the hokiness of Crash, Disconnect (produced in part by Oklahoma native Mickey Liddell, The Collection), performs the balancing act of multiple narratives well, even if some of its points are easy to predict. That its three parts all come to a head and collide at once is contrived, but Rubin’s visuals are so strong (matched by composer Max Richter’s score) that the implausibility can be forgiven.   —Rod Lott

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