‘Stay Online’: Fantasia Review

Dir: Eva Strelnikova. Ukraine. 2023. 109mins

The brutal and traumatic impact of the Russian invasion on ordinary families in Ukraine is given immediacy by Eva Strelnikova’s war thriller. Billed as the first film to be shot in Ukraine since the current conflict began, it employs a screenlife format similar to, though less polished than, the likes of John Cho-starrer Searching. The action takes place over a day early in the war, which we watch unfold largely via the screen of a laptop given to Lviv volunteer Katya (Liza Zaitseva). XYZ Films netted US distribution rights ahead of the film’s Fantasia world premiere and, given that the high profile subject matter is cleverly packaged with a genre structure, it’s likely other territories will follow suit.

Succeeds in bringing home the cruel unpredictability of war

The laptop that offers a window into Katya’s world isn’t hers; it is one of thousands donated by companies to the war effort, and belongs to a stranger named Andriy Fetsenko (Roman Liakh). As Katya gains access to it, the screen is flooded with elements of Andriy’s life including a constant stream of breaking news war updates, intermittent air raid warnings, a raft of incoming notes on messenger app Telegram and, crucially, a recurring pop-up urging him to “pick up Spider-man’s costume”. In a sensible move for international audiences – even though it requires some suspension of disbelief – all the text on the screen appears in English, so that only verbal conversations need to be subtitled.

As Katya goes about her intended task, which is to download a GPS location program before the laptop is collected by a comrade of her soldier brother Vitya (Oleksandr Rudynskyi), elements of her own life are also revealed. She chats to Vitya on the frontline, her volunteer American boyfriend Ryan (Anton Skrypets), who is also in a warzone, and her mum (Olesia Zhurakivska), who has no idea her son has enlisted. Katya’s other main ambition while in possession of the laptop is surprisingly dark – to take revenge on the families of dead Russian soldiers by calling them up, taunting them and sending them photos of their slain loved ones.

Things begin to shift when Andriy’s son Sava (Hordii Dziubynskyi) mistakenly thinks his dad is online and video calls him. The Spider-man-mad eight-year-old became separated from his family as they fled under-fire Bucha and, though he is being safely looked after, his parents seem to have dropped off the map. All of this prompts Katya to turn detective and start burrowing about in Andriy’s social media for signs of him; a decision which has unforeseen consequences. 

The instantaneous nature of the messages Katya receives helps the film to grip, although there’s quite a bit of cheating, involving cutaway shots of her that diminish the tension, while the scoring from Tomash Luckach feels insipid in comparison to the nature of the unfolding drama. The decision to cast Skrypets – who also co-wrote the screenplay with Strelnikova - as an American is also an odd one, given that his English is heavily accented, which again threatens the believability of the narrative. There are technical issues too with the laptop environment; at one point, for example, it is possible to see messages that Katya is about to write on screen before she has typed them.

Yet TV veteran Strelnikova, who is also making her feature debut here, does succeed in bringing home the cruel unpredictability of war, especially when modern technology can effectively put people alongside their loved ones in a warzone. Her film also celebrates the small acts of heroism and moments of tragedy that often go unnoticed by the wider world.