Love Apptually
(USA/Australia, 81 min.)
Dir. Shalini Kantayya
Prod. Elizabeth Woodward
Programme: Digital Witnesses (World premiere)
How is it that finding a date has never been easier than it is today, and yet, finding love feels more complicated than ever? Dating apps like Tinder and Bumble have radically altered the romantic landscape. Nowadays, app users can encounter more potential love interests in a one-hour swipe session than past generations could meet in a lifetime. But this abundance of choice has thrown the whole dating ecosystem out of whack. The latest documentary from Shalini Kantayya (Coded Bias, TikTok Boom), Love Apptually, examines how dating apps are transforming the way we find romance, and the devious ways that companies profit off our quests to find the one.
For journalist Judith Duportail, Tinder initially felt like a dating wonderland. At first, the app served up a never-ending stream of intriguing matches. But the magic soon waned as the harsh reality of finding love online set in. Instead of encountering a number of Prince Charmings, she matched with a parade of Lord Farquaads. That’s when Duportail’s journalism instincts kicked in, inspiring her to investigate the opaque algorithms compelling her — and millions of others — to keep tumbling through the dating app spin cycle.
Like Duportail, Jerry Allen Carnegie started off enjoying the world of dating apps. As a hopeless romantic, he’s active on five of them, always one swipe away from meeting Mr. Right. As a confident and devilishly handsome young man with endless dating opportunities, he’s stuck in the same loop, always searching and rarely connecting. Duportail and Carnegie have one thing in common: the technology heralded as making their dating lives easier leaves them feeling burnt out.
Love Apptually pivots from recounting user experiences to decoding the invisible systems directing their romantic journeys. The film breaks down how these “feel-good” apps ultimately leave users stressed out and feeling undesirable. It’s here where Duportail goes into full-on investigative journalist mode, probing the business models and the mysterious algorithms engineered to keep people hooked.
The film features a cross-disciplinary panel of experts — from data scientists to biological anthropologists — who unpack the perils of corporations manipulating algorithms to tug on users’ heartstrings. Kantayya also splices in clips of romantic films like Pretty Woman and You’ve Got Mail, reflecting the ideals these apps are selling while juxtaposing them with scenes from Ex Machina and Her, films depicting cozy dystopias where AI replaces the need for human connection.
Duportail discovers Tinder functions by assigning its consumers a secret Elo score that’s as closely guarded as the Colonel’s 11 herbs and spices recipe. Essentially, Tinder sorts profiles into a rigid hierarchy where a minuscule percentage of people rule the roost. Since the algorithms skew towards a very small percentage of “most desirable people,” it leaves large portions of the user base feeling like they’re left out in the cold, with less meaningful matches and mounting frustrations. Meanwhile, these platforms secretly harvest their customers’ private data — like inferred IQ and HIV status — and sell it off to advertisers.
Once it’s established that these companies don’t operate based on their users’ best interest, Kantayya broadens the film’s scope to examine the wider cultural impact. Love Apptually argues that in an era that prioritizes digital relationships, social skills required for “meat space” are beginning to atrophy. It touches on the growing discomfort people feel when dealing with each other offline, and raises concerns about how AI companions will reduce our tolerance for the messiness of in-person relationships.
At the same time, the film challenges viewers to confront how easily we’ve accepted the commodification of one another — selecting potential soulmates à la carte, reducing human beings to glossy profile photos and blurbs. What makes people so willing to flatten others into checklists when we resist being judged that way ourselves? What is it about these apps that keeps people from affording strangers the same dignity they demand in return? Love Apptually doesn’t present any easy fixes, but by raising these questions, it underscores how the soulless act of swiping desensitizes us to the spontaneous pleasures of connecting with another human being — the type of unscripted magic algorithms could never predict.
Love Apptually delivers a thoughtful, poignant, and often incensing look at the collision between technology, capitalism, and modern love. The film presents a clear-eyed examination of both the allure and the perils of finding love with the swipe of your finger. Kantayya deftly exposes the greedy companies selling endless hope without being accountable to deliver, keeping people trapped in a cycle where we’re more connected than ever, yet rarely connecting in ways that truly matter.
