Algorithmic intimacies and digital dystopias: a triangulated analysis of surveillance, subjectivity, and control in Vikramaditya Motwane’s CTRL (2024)

This study presents a triangulated analysis of Vikramaditya Motwane’s CTRL (2024), integrating narrative, textual, and discourse methods to examine the film’s exploration of algorithmic surveillance, emotional autonomy, and gendered digital coercion. Centering on the protagonist, Nella Awasthi, a social media influencer whose emotional vulnerability is exploited by an advanced AI system, the film narrativizes the psychological costs of datafication and predictive control. Through narrative analysis, the protagonist’s descent from emotional agency to algorithmic submission is charted. Textual analysis reveals how visual motifs such as cold color palettes, glitch aesthetics, and spatial compression evoke themes of entrapment and surveillance. Discourse analysis uncovers the ideological frameworks underlying the film’s portrayal of care-tech, emotional manipulation, and platform capitalism. Together, these methods illuminate CTRL as a layered cultural text that critiques contemporary digital life and raises urgent ethical questions about autonomy, data, and digital subjectivity in an age of ubiquitous surveillance.