Given the subject of Birdman, which is praise is good as long as it’s the right kind, I feel like someone on earth should defend the poor helpless little Men, Women and Children, which given the title, means I’m defending everyone, including the people who made Birdman, or worse still, the people who praised Birdman. Maybe that was a marketing ploy. You can’t say ‘I hate Men Woman and Children‘ without sounding like a misanthrope. It would be like saying ‘I love Birdman‘ without hating men, women and children.

I’m not going to defend MW+C very strenuously, of course; it’s no Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For. And there are some clunky moments, especially at the end. But here’s the thing: it’s honest, and it’s vulnerable. There was some idiot who said that there already a movie made about social media and that movie was Her. Can’t read that review? That’s because The Times, the TIMES, is behind a paywall. It would seem there’s no shortage of naiveté about the internet.

Strangely, it was at the Cineworld Crawley that I saw trailer that forced me to see Men Women and Children.

Her, a great and noble film (Men, Woman and Children is noble, which ain’t bad), is in no way about social media. Remember that part where the lead posts online about his status, and is constantly worried about what his online presence is, and never interacts with his friends face to face? That’s because none of those scenes exist. You can’t just like something I like – you have to do it for the same reasons. In fact, in order of acceptability – liking a movie for the same reasons I like it, hating a movie for the reasons I like it, liking a movie for the wrong reasons, and the day that Cineworld switched to Baskin Robbins. They make bad ice cream. How is that even possible?

And strangely, as much this film wants to be about the invasion of social media, and even says that it is, it ultimately really isn’t. Instead it seems very much about loneliness, and that’s the nobility, since that feeling seems currently ignored in our media. And the various pundits weighing in that this film is a grandfather’s tirade against the internet are simply inaccurate. Against our idiotic appraisal of Her, there’s a nice description of tumblr from Ms. Kaitlyn Dever which involves the pleasure of putting things on a wall that represent the you don’t want to show to the people you know in real life.

In fact, the film ultimately falls apart due to its naiveté vis-a-vis the technology of social media. The inevitable suicide-attempts-mean-the–film-is-near-its-culmination manifests when Ms. Garner discovers her daughter’s online persona. This is something that even the most n00 of n008’s would be able to circumvent. Have none of these people heard of private browsing? And the film’s lazy determination to punish sin, instead of letting it dangerously fester, shows itself in this.

I could say ‘it’s like it was made in early 2014′, but the day after the internet existed, there were ways to hide it in. The day before the internet existed, there was porn…of the internet existing. I guess that’s a challenge to any Rule 34 artists out there: draw porn of the internet. It’s a series of tubes after all. It practically draws itself. In fact, that’s the picture. You’re welcome.

Look, this is not a great film, and honestly, don’t bother seeing it. But the scene where Sandler goes into his son’s computer to look for something to jerk off…on? for? How do you end that clause grammatically? For that which to off jerk? Anyway, as he starts to find his son’s stash kind of hot, the ends with a nice little visual coda: flipping his tie over his shoulder. Does that count as grammar? It’s not profound, and maybe medium funny. But even this moment contains more wit and honesty than the entirety of our praised Birdfoxes this year. No one else was going to say it. At least not for the right reasons.

Profits!

Losses!