“Screenlife” is a term I believe was coined by Russian filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov to describe a subgenre he’s been championing for years now and indicates a type of film that exclusively takes place within a screen on the screen. In other words, you’re not getting sweeping landscapes and idyllic sunsets. You’re get webcams, chat feeds, social media accounts, and security camera footage. It’s the type of storytelling tool that places distinct limitations around itself to see what kinds of modern stories can emerge. I’ve personally experienced a small handful of these types of movies, including Searching, Profile, and Host. I enjoyed those to limited degrees, and am here to say that LifeHack is far and away the best screenlife project I’ve seen to date. In fact, LifeHack is the first screenlife story that seemed to not only benefit from the screenlife rule set, but perhaps even transcend it.
A key limitation I’ve felt with past screenlife titles is underdeveloped characters. Since you can only see them on chat screens, it’s hard to get to know them. LifeHack’s four main leads are best friends and perpetually online gamer/hacker types. Writer/Director Ronan Corrigan and co-writer Hope Elliott Kemp do a remarkable job scrolling through old home videos and online memories to show us how these four best friends became an elite online unit and we feel a fast bond with them. It doesn’t feel limiting to only see our friends through their monitors because that’s how THEY see themselves all the time. We feel like we’re in their inner sanctum, clued in to all their individual quirks, skill sets, and personalities as they bond, game, troll, and do life together.
I also really appreciate the way our new young friends seem to edge their way into the main plot of LifeHack, in which they attempt to heist a billionaire’s (a very thinly veiled Elon Musk stand in) crypto stash from him. Much like so many major internet stories and so much online discourse I see, our friends kind of “joke” about being able to pull something big off, test the waters with some smaller stakes pranks, and then all the sudden find themselves in over their heads and fighting for their lives as somewhere along the line their “trolling” begins to become “larceny”. As kids are wont to do, they react in wildly different ways with some doubling down and some realizing their futures in college and career are quickly fading away as a result of their online actions encroaching on their real worlds.
So now we’re all in with our well-realized young cast of characters, and the heist is on, whether they all really wanted it to be or not. They’ve got to see this through to the end now, and here is where the film really and truly soars: the extended heist sequence. In order to get the crypto stash, our brilliant young hackers have to physically get into the billionaire’s building and onto his personal laptop. With the help of his scorned and cut off from the trust fund influencer daughter, our leads attempt an absolutely nail-biting heist unlike any you’ve ever really seen before thanks to the requirements of the screenlife format. Through texts, security footage, video chats, and more, you’ll see a thrilling sequence unlike any other.
Finally, there’s a real underdog vibe to LifeHack that makes it extremely easy to root for our four leads. These are kids with real struggles, talents, passions, hopes, and dreams. Sure, they’re extremely online in a way that feels uncomfortable to me as an old man, but they’re not simply our protagonists, they’re the heroes of the film. We fall in love with them, and we want more than anything for them to succeed. It helps that their “victim” is a truly hateable billionaire at a time when so few are siphoning up the livelihoods of so many. We’re in a robber baron era once again, and though it took Corrigan and his team years to finalize this film, it’s now hitting at the ripest possible time as a middle finger to oligarchs and a fist pumping celebration of youthful rebellion and ingenuity.
If LifeHack proves anything, it’s that even within an intentionally limiting format like screenlife, you can still get thrills, and even find emotional connection with the characters when the filmmaking team knows what they’re doing. Corrigan gives us characters that feel robust and relatable, and displays through the many screens we are watching a highly plausible and authentic feeling crypto heist, even if I have no idea what a truly authentic crypto heist would ACTUALLY look like. The point is that it’s done so well that it’s easy for audiences to buy in, go for a ride, and never feel like their intelligence is insulted along the way. This is no easy task when you’re not only writing a “script”, but also having to display every last onscreen detail and frequently relay story and emotion, tension and release, through graphical displays, texts, and chat windows. Corrigan and Kemp pull it all off with aplomb, and if there’s justice, LifeHack will see a wide release and give audiences around the world the same thrill ride it gave me.
And I’m Out.
