Many documentaries exist to highlight a specific societal issue with the intention of shocking people with the realities of the situation. However, DTF, a documentary that looks at Tinder as a way to find love for one bereaved and lonely airline pilot, may be one of the most shocking things I’ve seen as it becomes abundantly clear there are greater issues at play here.
The film introduces us to ‘Christian,’ an airline pilot who is granted anonymity. His face is never shown, his voice is distorted and his name is, of course, not actually Christian. Christian works as a long-haul airline pilot and has agreed to be the subject of director Al Bailey’s exploration of Tinder as they follow Christian in what they thought would be the pilot’s genuine attempts to find love.
However, it quickly becomes apparent that to Al, just as quickly as it becomes apparent to us as viewers, that Christian is grappling with many vices and inner-demons. He’s clearly not over the loss of his wife (a friend of filmmaker Bailey’s), struggles with the loneliness caused by his job, and has become addicted to a variety of different vices, namely sex, alcohol, and drugs.
What follows is a desperate attempt from Al Bailey and the rest of the documentary team to piece together a working film in spite of Christian’s recklessness and downward addiction spiral, and an incredibly raw and unfiltered end result.
We are shocked when Christian’s first Tinder date results in him possibly contracting HIV, we are shocked with which the ease Christian moves on from that by seemingly having a woman at every port, and we are shocked by Christian’s constant alcoholism and pathological need to have sex. We continue to be shocked and then more shocked as the depravity, misogyny, and callousness of Christian’s addiction manifests itself in his abhorrent actions.
On the surface a lot of Christian’s behaviour is extremely recognisable to anyone who has been part of or observed ‘laddish’ behavior, but we see his actions spiral out of control and become extremely problematic. He elicits sex from a starving woman by offering her food, he date-rapes the filmmaker and wipes his own semen over him, and he eventually reveals he spiked his late wife’s milkshakes with penicillin in case any of his jet-setting womanizing would inadvertently give her an STD.
The documentary tries to tow a line between outright condemnation of Christian and empathetic understanding, and often the filmmaker and crew make attempts to help him. Indeed, the decision that director Bailey makes by putting himself in the film as a sort of moral-barometer and relatable character through which the audience can filter Christian’s actions is a brilliant one, as we see through Bailey’s horrified reactions how serious some of these instances are.
But as the documentary comes to a climax and Bailey is at the end of his tether in trying to control Christian’s destructive behavior and consequently loses control of his own actions, it’s clear that Christian is almost unredeemable.
The film might have been about one specific airline pilot with a specific set of emotional and psychological hang-ups, but it really works as an exploration of toxic masculinity, sex addiction, and misogyny as issues that men in general face every day. It skirts around the moral responsibility that dating apps like Tinder and the airline industry have in contributing towards this culture, but it’s hard not to see how the condemnation of Christian also serves as a condemnation of them.
One major takeaway from DTF is that we all, as men, can do more to recognize this toxic and destructive behavior in our own friend groups and try to address it. This isn’t just limited to airline pilots, it’s a problem that affects us all. Christian is a truly reprehensible, yet tragic figure and one that many people will recognize in their own friend groups. It may have been too late for him, but it’s not too late for us to save many men that we care about from themselves.
DTF is available now on VOD.
