Logout: When Finstas, Fame & Fear Collide

Logout: A Terrific Babil Khan Holds His Own In This Cyber Thriller

Logout looks at the addiction of social media through the lens of a parasocial relationship—where the fragile fame of content creators is turned around to focus on those who are influenced. Ishita Sengupta reviews.

BABIL KHAN is notorious for being nice. Social media is filled with videos of the actor profusely apologising for doing something as slight as stepping in front of someone, or striking up heartfelt conversations with paparazzi about his mother. The earnestness is palpable and can be — and is often — adjudged to be people-pleasing, as if his life depends on being liked. In Amit Golani’s Logout, Khan plays Pratyush Dua , a young man desperate to be liked. In other words, he is an influencer.

The self-reflexivity of the casting does wonders. Khan is tremendously effective as Pratyush, who spends hours holding his phone to keep a tab on his followers. It is not exactly a physical role, but the actor, with the camera tightly framing his face, remains attuned to the tiniest of gestures. A faint smile hovers over his lips when his following surges, a hint of panic when a rival influencer seems primed to hit 10 million followers before him.

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Logout, however, is concerned with a different kind of strife — one that of attention. Written by Biswapati Sarkar (of the TVF fame), the film looks at social media addiction through the lens of a parasocial relationship. It makes for an intriguing premise where the fragile fame of content creators is turned around, and the shift, which refuses to look at influencers in a vacuum, brings those who are influenced into the picture.

Pratyush Dua is an influencer in Delhi. Like most men with a career in comedy, he too has mined his break-up story for likes, shares and subscriptions. The story he has floated is similar: he was dumped by a girl; he cried for days and then used the heartbreak to make funny videos. His feed is infiltrated by Laila-Majnu videos, where he plays both the tragic lovers, implying that he is the perpetual victim across all scenarios. His present predicament, however, is something else. Another influencer, a girl, is also steadily moving to the coveted spot of having 10 million followers.

Pratyush has a strategy in mind, which includes being in the news, like slut-shaming the concerned influencer from his "finsta" only to defend her from his main account, and collaborating with someone with more followers (Bhuvan Bam makes an appearance) for a wider reach. Things go according to plan till he gets drunk one night, goes live from his account, and wakes up the next day without his phone.

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If this sounds like a regular horror story, then the fright is duly embellished when Pratyush starts receiving cryptic messages from a superfan about the whereabouts of his phone. Some lies are told, but it is soon revealed that she has his device and is willing to trade if he gives her his undivided attention. All she wants is to talk to him the whole day.

Golani and Sarkar, who have collaborated as writers on multiple projects in the past ( Kaala Paani , Jaadugar ), go to interesting territory from here. There are flourishes of Maneesh Sharma’s Fan (2016) in a disillusioned devotee’s demand to be treated better, there are shadows of Vikramaditya Motwane’s Trapped (2016) where the sense of entrapment in an abandoned house is revived to evoke a similar rush of ambush when Pratyush is compelled to stay home and use landline or a desktop to reach out to his friends. There is also this idea of examining the limits of obsession with virtual fame by putting it under duress. Although using a rat caught in a trap as a metaphor is too grating.

Even as Logout remains consistently engaging, it also unfolds as a conflation of these convictions and, as a result, a critique of none. It is not so much an undoing as it is the exposure of the film leaning on easy resolutions. And given that it goes nowhere with full force, a lot of Logout comes across as reiterations of Motwane’s screenlife thriller CTRL (2024), also designed around an influencer and encircled on similar themes.

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But Golani’s film did not set out to be a repetition, evident in its grasp of smaller details. Like the dubiousness in the psyche of someone like Pratyush, who is famous for being famous, that included resistance to doing a humiliating reel for traction and a willingness to gain more followers at the cost of his own safety. Or even tactically using another account of his to shame a colleague, only to jump to her rescue with his main account. These are astute observations reflected more visibly in the house he lives in. Although it is supposed to be in Delhi, there is a genericness to the space, replete with cameras, wigs and light stands, which aligns with the nondescript nature of his profession.

Khan, however, lends a distinct personality to the role. The actor occupies almost every frame and brings a visceral watchability to the many inflexions of Pratyush, ranging from having a meltdown to simmering with rage. If the film culminates as a cautionary tale for both influencers and those who are influenced, then his turn somehow amplifies and eases the terror with persuasiveness. It even makes Logout’ s failure to depict the consequences of Pratyush’s finsta revelation, and thereby being a film which is about the Internet, but forgetting that the Internet forgets nothing, as an acceptable oversight. Most crucially though, Khan’s portrayal of a young man desperate to be liked makes a solid case to like Babil Khan.

Watch Logout here

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