At Sundance, Olivia Wilde invites us to Wake Up

A young woman awakens from a state of amnesia at a Manhattan hospital and looks curiously at the world around her as if after a long absence. Brushing aside her doctors and their battery of medical tests, she rushes outside into the streets to breathe the air and experience the city’s sights and sounds, dancing among strangers on the sidewalk, singing on the subway, and taking in the pinnacles of the skyline on a sun-drenched summer day.

In Wake Up, a new short film directed by Olivia Wilde debuting at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, the central character played by Margaret Qualley (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), stares deeply into the eyes of passersby, eager to make connections. But at every turn in her journey to rediscover who she is, she is met by indifferent strangers, glassy-eyed and riveted to their personal electronic devices. She’s dispirited to find herself in a world where screen time crowds out authentic social interaction.

Shot with kaleidoscopic effects on location in Times Square, the High Line and other familiar New York City sites, the 10-minute film—with a soundtrack recorded by indie pop stars Perfume Genius — asks pointedly: How often are we distracted by our screens versus actually needing to use them, and how much is too much? 

For the film’s director, Wake Up is a provocative invitation to start a conversation about how the technology we depend on for our information, entertainment, and social connection has come disturbingly close to supplanting the very interactions that make us human. 

“It was such a thrill to collaborate with Margaret Qualley, legendary cinematographer Matty Libatique [nominated for Oscars as director of photography of Black Swan and A Star Is Born], and the rest of our extraordinary crew to tell this story about what it means to be human,” says Wilde, who made her directorial debut last year with the award-winning Booksmart.

That desire to make a film that combines elements of visual fantasy with contemporary reality was one of the reasons that HP tapped Wilde, a major talent in independent films who directs and stars in the upcoming psychological thriller for the Time’s Up era, Don’t Worry, Darling, for its branded project about the role and presence of technology in our lives, according to Vikrant Batra, chief marketing officer at HP.

“We knew it would take a provocative filmmaker to bring the story to life. Someone bold, with a fresh perspective,” Batra says. “Beyond just her gifts as an actress and director, [Wilde] always used her platform to speak up about issues important to us. At the same time, she’s never directed anything like this with a brand before. The key was talking to her about how HP sees the world and getting her to understand that this wasn’t just a marketing stunt,” he says. “The second we shared our intention for the film, she was on board.”

The end result of those conversations, Batra explains, is Wake Up, a film that holds a mirror to our complicated relationship with screens that will help viewers to evaluate the consequences of their tech habits and their own connectedness. “As a company, we believe that the digital world ​can ​bring us closer together when used properly. But the problem is we often turn to technology to distract or disconnect us,” he says. “This film is a challenge to each of us to use tech with intention.”

If your 2020 resolution includes a digital detox, here are 9 doable tips for less screen time and more real time.