SHARE? - Mark Reviews Movies

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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 9, 2023

A short but neat little allegory for the social media age, Share? is about a man trapped in a room with only a toilet, a shower, and, most importantly of all, a computer in it. At first, the computer has only one function: to share a live feed of the man and the room to an unknown, unseen audience. What else is the guy supposed to do?

The whole thing is a bit on the nose as a parable, especially since the target of screenwriter Benjamin Sutor's inspection is right there in literal, physical form. It's the screen, of course, as well as everything and the limited potential it represents, and director Ira Rosensweig mirrors that idea in a formal way. Our perspective is from behind a screen for the entirety of the film.

That makes us participants in this strange endeavor or experiment or new way of life—whatever mysterious thing is actually going on in the world of this story—to the extent that any of us are participating in the online realm. We're not just observers. The film makes us accomplices in a way, and that means the formal gimmick here has a purpose beyond the novelty of staging a drama wholly from assorted cameras at the same fixed angle.

The man, played by Melvin Gregg, awakens in this small, stone-walled room. After a bit, he realizes that certain actions, such as farting, are rewarded with credits. He can use those credits to purchase food, clothing, a shower curtain, a bed, and other necessities or comforts for what seems to be an indefinite stay in this space.

There's much more to story than this, as other characters—fellow experiment subjects for or prisoners within some new system of living, played by Bradley Whitford, Alice Braga, and Danielle Campbell—pop up in windows his screen. In the case of some people, our man simply watches, with the ability to gift them credits, like the insular economy in which the participants are the product being sold.

As for other characters, they become a permanent part of the screen. They posit theories about what's happening, plot ways to start some kind of revolution, and, when it comes to Whitford's character, propose that such things don't matter. They're all simply part of this, after all, like their captors or observers, because, well, we're all basically a captive audience at this point, really. Some glitches in the system and distractions from the dire reality of the situation keep the drama from becoming stagnant.

Yes, it's simple and to-the-point, but good satire, such as Share? does become, forces us to look at ourselves, our society, and our world through the familiar yet warped mirror of some alternate reality. The fact that so much of this is recognizable as only a minor exaggeration of the world of social media is just enough to re-think what a life online is and, more often than not, isn't.

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