THE STORY – Kyle and his friends hack for fun, pranking online scammers. Seeking a bigger thrill, they target billionaire Don Heard through his daughter Lindsey’s social media, stealing his cryptocurrency.
THE CAST – Georgie Farmer, Yasmin Finney, Roman Hayeck-Green, James Scholz, Jessica Reynolds & Charlie Creed-Miles
THE TEAM – Ronan Corrigan (Director/Writer) & Hope Elliott Kemp (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 97 Minutes
While the screenlife subgenre has thrived largely on our ever-evolving dependence on devices deeply ingrained in our everyday lives, such as smartphones and computers, the novelty has slowly worn off. There have been highs, mainly films like the 2018 thriller “Searching,” that use the framing of these stories to immerse audiences as if they’re active participants in the story itself. Yet for every successful entry in this subgenre, there comes a misfire, such as the recent iteration of “War of the Worlds,” making it almost enough to call it quits on screenlife films as a whole. Even if this trend is on a downward slope, thankfully, we’re able to eke out one last fruitful entry with Ronan Corrigan’s “LifeHack,“ a heist film for the digital era that encapsulates everything inventive and sinister of capturing life through a screen.
In “LifeHack,“ four longtime (and mostly online) friends, Kyle, Alex, Sid, and Petey (Georgie Farmer, Yasmin Finney, Roman Hayeck-Green, and James Scholz) spend their days rotting in front of their PC set-ups. To these troubled outsiders, this is how they face the world or even interact with others as they revenge-hack online scammers, play Rust-like mobas, and just shoot the breeze on their Discord server. It’s an accurate yet somewhat concerning portrayal of friendship in the digital age, where the tool that brings us together also keeps us confined to our dark rooms for hours at a time. Kyle and his computer compatriots are always on the hunt for a new chase and stumble upon a potential scam that could solve their financial struggles. The key to a better life? Robbing Charlie Creed-Miles’s millionaire crypto scumbag Don Head, a financial tycoon whose online persona is eerily similar to Elon Musk, while containing a far more malevolent energy buried beneath the surface. While their talents may prove worthwhile, these four friends soon open a Pandora’s box, revealing that just because they’re hiding behind a screen doesn’t mean their actions don’t have consequences.
Credit goes to Corrigan’s direction, as his ability to keep viewers glued to the screen with a million things happening before their eyes is balanced by the film’s consistent momentum and the four performances at the center of “LifeHack.“These young actors make watching their characters’ juvenile antics worthwhile, balancing the humorous exchanges that chronically online Gen-Z would engage in with the heightened reactions to the serious situation as it slowly spirals out of control. Farmer, who anchors the story, guides it where it needs to go with his terrific performance, making him a protagonist easily worth rooting for despite his clear shortsightedness. Corrigan, along with co-writer Hope Elliott Kemp, successfully builds a lived-in history amongst these friends that makes their friendships worth investing in. Kemp and Corrigan also nail the essential hallmarks of all successful heist films, making every shocking development feel like an organic deviation from the “what can go wrong“ mindset that always conjures up complications.
The film’s adherence to these genre cliches, along with the characters’ very one-note motivations, holds “LifeHack“ back from reaching the tier of excellent heist films and, more importantly, settles for the best that a screenlife film can be. At least Corrigan’s debut never overextends its welcome, keeping a brisk pace all the way through the film’s final moments in a conclusion that, while expected, is still incredibly satisfying to witness. It’s a testament that, with a solid story, good performances, and Aleksandr Kletsov and Corrigan’s propulsive editing, you can still show there’s gas in the tank of this digital display style of filmmaking, even if it’s running on empty.
