Recensioni de* critic*

That Unfriended, which takes the form of a screencast of a laptop in which high schoolers chat on various applications (Skype, Facebook, Chatroullette), was so good despite being made by a man over 40 is remarkable, especially because its pleasures derive from how deftly it captures the way young people communicate.

It feels in many ways like the first movie produced for a generation that takes multi-tasking as second nature, and it exploits that distraction for dramatic effect. That the film is never boring despite its static situation is a testament to how skillfully the real estate has been divided up. There’s real excitement in the way that Gabriadze activates different parts of the screen and forces the viewer to keep up.

I thought I’d find it mildly depressing to sit and watch a laptop screen for even 83 minutes. Each new window only calls attention to the presentation’s one-dimensionality. But, like the Paranormal Activitymovies (the supernatural; home surveillance; found footage; Jason Blum), the simplicity of the premise becomes the appeal of fearing it. Here, though, “simplicity” turns out to be another word for “cheap.”

The best thing about “Unfriended,” beyond its funny-nasty title, is that it doesn’t play as remotely dull as it sounds even if most of the drama takes place inside shifting, overlapping windows.

It’s with due caution that one approaches Levan Gabriadze’s Unfriended, which is billed as “told in real-time, entirely from a teenaged girl’s computer screen.” A faintly desperate variation on the increasingly tired found-footage trend hardly sounds appealing. And yet, remarkably, the framing device proves thoughtful, even rather elegant—an appropriate vehicle for a work of intelligence and wit.