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Men, Women & Children
Movie

Men, Women & Children

2014 • Unknown

Woke Score
5
out of 10

Plot

Follows the story of a group of high school teenagers and their parents as they attempt to navigate the many ways the internet has changed their relationships, their communication, their self-image, and their love lives.

Overall Series Review

Men, Women & Children is an ensemble drama that examines the isolating effects of modern technology on a group of suburban high school students and their parents. The narrative weaves together multiple stories of marital infidelity, internet addiction, anorexia, and sexual exploitation, all framed as consequences of the digital age. The film presents a bleak, secular view of human relationships where people seek connection and validation through screens, often leading to moral confusion and personal disaster. A constant, detached narration provides cosmic philosophical commentary on the characters' 'petty' struggles as the Voyager probe moves through space. The focus is a critical, yet empathetic, dissection of contemporary American family life and its struggle with intimacy and self-image, concluding that the problems of disconnection and moral rot pre-date the internet but are amplified by it.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics2/10

The casting and narrative focus primarily on a universal human struggle with technology and intimacy, not race or immutable characteristics. Characters are defined by personal flaws and choices related to marital dissatisfaction, addiction, and body image, not an intersectional hierarchy. There is no lecturing on privilege or systemic oppression.

Oikophobia7/10

The movie operates within a self-consciously downbeat 'suburban-nightmare' model, heavily critiquing the mundane dysfunction of American home life. The omniscient narration frames the 'Earthly squabbles' of the characters as insignificant and frivolous when compared to the vastness of space and the detachment of the Voyager probe, demonstrating a civilizational self-hatred by diminishing the value of the characters' lives and domestic existence.

Feminism5/10

Gender dynamics are dysfunctional but equally distributed in their depravity. Women are not presented as 'Girl Boss' ideals; they are shown as severely flawed, including a mother exploiting her daughter for celebrity and another who is hyper-controlling. Men are similarly flawed, struggling with impotence, emotional withdrawal, and online escort use. The family unit is depicted as decaying due to apathy and infidelity, rather than being an inherently oppressive structure, resulting in a moderate score.

LGBTQ+4/10

The narrative includes a male teen's struggle with internet pornography addiction leading to an interest in BDSM/kink, which causes difficulty in a traditional relationship. This centers an alternative sexual practice but not the broader political ideology of Queer Theory, such as gender identity or the deconstruction of the nuclear family as an 'oppressive' structure. The nuclear family's deconstruction is a result of adult infidelity and apathy.

Anti-Theism9/10

The spiritual landscape of the film is a total vacuum where traditional faith is entirely absent and secular moral relativism reigns. The movie's moral compass is replaced by Carl Sagan-esque existential philosophizing from the narrator, which implicitly elevates scientific detachment over any transcendent moral or spiritual belief. There are no religious characters, and the story’s conflicts are purely a result of individual, secular failings in a morally subjective world.