CTRL Review: AI Courts Ananya Pandey in a ‘Searching’ Meets ‘Red Rose’ Thriller
Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
One of the worst things that can happen to an influencer whose romantic life is the biggest USP of their online brand is a breakup. Nella Awasthi (Ananya Pandey), who runs a popular video channel called ‘NJOY’ with her boyfriend Joe Mascarenhas (Vihaan Samat), was hoping for a ‘happily ever after,’ an expectation that’s shattered when she catches him cheating. Devastated over the breakup, Nella hopes she could simply remove all traces of Joe from her digital life. Enter an AI assistant from a new app called CTRL, which offers to take over Nella’s life and starts controlling it in insidious ways.
Directed by Vikramaditya Motwane (‘Sacred Games’/‘Udaan’), CTRL’s screenplay follows the template of the 2014 movie ‘Unfriended,’ one of the first films to popularize ‘screenlife’ storytelling – everything unfolds through screens, be it mobile phones, laptops, cameras, or CCTV footage. However, the plot is like a mash-up between the 2018 film ‘Searching,’ another screenlife movie about a father looking for his daughter, and ‘Red Rose,’ a techno-thriller about an intrusive app that ruins the lives of its users. ‘CTRL’ is about an AI assistant that looks like a rip-off of Ranveer Singh from Gully Boy, with a bad flirty personality, who starts controlling Nella’s life – from her social media identity, brand deals, to tampering with her texts.
‘CTRL’ opens with a fun montage of Nella and Joe’s relationship, with lots of travel photos and videos featuring the couple having fun, which instantly reminded me of Ananya’s movie “Kho Gaye Hum Kaha,” which starts off in a similar manner – with happy photos of the protagonists set to music. And in what might be an Easter egg or just me over-reading things, the very first few minutes drop a reference to Ananya’s series ‘Call Me Bae,’ where Vihaan Samat played her love interest too. In ‘CTRL,’ you’ll find the ‘Call Me Bae’ reference in a photo Nella posts on social media with Joe, captioned “My bae rocks, his bae… fishes?” In fact, there are quite a few pop culture references in the movie, including a direct reference to the 1993 hit ‘Darr.’ As soon as Joe exists Nella’s life, she chooses an AI assistant, names him Allen, and asks him to remove all digital traces of Joe from her online life.
The first half of ‘CTRL’ is entertaining, well-paced, and very Gen-Z toned, with Nella’s ‘life so far’ summarized through a bunch of social media posts and videos. A whole bunch of online influencers and comedians make witty cameos through ‘CTRL’ for an accurate representation of influencer culture. YouTuber Yashraj Mukhate, who went viral in 2020 for his ‘Rasode Main Kaun Tha’ video, features in the movie with his own hilarious composition called ‘Mera Boyfriend,’ which trolls Nella after she finds herself in her own embarrassing viral fiasco.
While the first half is mostly humorous in nature, the core mystery in ‘CTRL’ is about Joe going missing days after Nella asked her AI app to remove him from her life (digitally). The last hour focuses on Nella digging into Joe’s disappearance, and the pace begins to dip. The truth behind Joe’s activities comes across as a bit far-fetched and exaggerated. Vikramaditya Motwane and team try to depict the perils of our increasing online presence and the need for data privacy, but they go over the top with the twists. How Nella’s life intersects with the sinister AI app isn’t convincing, even though Ananya Pandey as Nella delivers a gripping performance. Her reliance on AI Allen is relatable to anyone who’s sought comfort in an AI chat when they had no one else to turn to. Ultimately, the film’s strongest theme is the evolving bond between humans and AI, highlighting how easy it is to become dependent on systems designed to mimic human connection. Even though that was clearly not CTRL’s primary intention.
Additionally, there were some factual inconsistencies in the script. For instance, Joe tells Nella he has only been with her since he was 17 (they meet in their first year of college, when most kids are 18 or 19, though 17-year-olds wouldn’t be too surprising either). However, there’s a lot of fuss at the start of ‘CTRL’ over their 5th relationship anniversary, which would ideally make Joe a maximum of 22 years old in the present timeline, but towards a climactic scene, a news report states he was 25 years old.
Regardless of its flaws, ‘CTRL’ lands a solid, dystopian ending that mirrors real-world fears of tech giants taking over our lives. For those who haven’t seen ‘screenlife’ movies, ‘CTRL’ is an engaging thriller, even though some of the scenes that involve Nella simply typing lots of stuff on her laptop could’ve been chopped from the final edit.
Rating: 6.5 out of 10. Watch ‘CTRL’ on Netflix.
Also Read: Nobody Wants This Review – The RomCom We Need (Short Audio Version below)
