Perils of the net

EVERYONE loves the internet, don’t they? It makes communication instantaneous, music easily accessible and provides a limitless supply of information available at the click of a button.

However, for all of its benefits, there is also a dark side to the internet that many parents and children sometimes overlook, to their peril.

Most people have heard the term ‘stranger danger’ presumably from when they were children and their parents warned them about taking sweets from strangers.

In this technological age, it’s not that simple anymore. The internet is a relatively anonymous forum in which people are not always who they claim to be and each year thousands of young children are groomed online by sexual predators.

Chat rooms seem harmless enough and more often than not, they are. But what happens if the person you’re chatting to isn’t who they say they are?

That’s essentially what this film is about and I think it’s great that it’s drawing attention to an issue that is, in my opinion, not highlighted enough.

To set the scene Annie (Liberato) is a young teenage girl who loves spending her time in front of a computer and chatting online.

During one browsing session she meets a boy in a chat room who calls himself Charlie and tells her he is 16.

They spend hours chatting and even exchange phone numbers which results in text messages being sent back and forth as often as emails.

Although they talk a lot digitally, she has never actually seen him, besides his profile picture which presents him as a handsome young man.

Annie’s parents, Will and Lynne (Owen and Keener) know she’s chatting to him and innocently assume he is who he claims to be but they’re so caught up in the hustle and bustle of their own lives that they don’t pay too much attention to how much time their daughter is spending communicating with him.

Eventually she begins to send him pictures of herself and the topic of conversation moves on to a more disturbing and sexual theme.

As time goes by Charlie reveals that he is older than he initially claimed. First of all he says he’s 20 and then changes it to 25.

Instead of alarm bells going off, she says she loves him and agrees to meet up with him in person. When he arrives he is considerably older than 25, much to Annie’s shock and confusion.

However, he uses the trust he built up online over the months and persuades her to stick around. He even buys her a present and then coerces her into going to a hotel with him.

After their encounter, Charlie disappears off the grid which leads to Annie feeling used and very confused.

Eventually Annie’s friend tells the principal that she has seen her out in town with an older man and is worried about her.

The police are called immediately and after she undergoes some medical tests, her parents are called in and she tells them the whole story. Obviously they’re mad and disgusted but more than that, they’re understandably shocked when Annie says she still loves Charlie.

From that point on the FBI gets involved and take over the case, to try and catch the sexual predator, even though Annie isn’t thrilled about tricking the man she ‘loves’.

Amidst all the fruitless searches for Charlie, Will decides that not enough is being done to find the man who took advantage of his daughter and sets off on his own one-man quest for vengeance.

He becomes so obsessed with tracking Charlie down that his family life falls apart. He and Annie keep fighting and Lynne tells him that his time would be better spent consoling his daughter than finding Charlie, but her pleas fall on deaf ears.

This film is well-paced and is as gripping as it is precautionary. The cast all perform fantastically, in fact the performances were so good I actually feel bad for the actor who plays Charlie because I guarantee that people who watch this movie will be hunting him down afterwards. Remember, he’s just an actor!

Liberato’s role as Annie really took a lot of work to pull off. It’s easy to yell at the screen and curse her for being so naÔve but that’s what made her performance so engaging. She manages to make you care about her character and understand how easily children can be taken advantage of.

While she did a remarkable job playing the victim I think the real star of this film has to be Owen. He makes the transition from mild-mannered father to a psychopathic vigilante come to life. You can see the pain in his eyes and you empathise with him instantaneously.

Finally, the director...yes, it’s Ross from Friends and, no, the film isn’t at all funny. I think this project really speaks to the astounding quality of his directorial style. I was frankly amazed when I found out he was at the helm.
 
This is a must-see movie for anyone with a teenage daughter. And, if you are someone’s teenage daughter, sorry, I just got you grounded and had your laptop taken away.