In a fraught scene in "Disconnect," a lawyer played by Jason Bateman discovers that his son's girlfriend doesn't actually exist. The conversation between Mr. Bateman's character and the fabricated online persona "Jessica" plays out entirely via text. An interface designed to resemble Facebook 's chat function appears next to an extreme close-up on Mr. Bateman's increasingly teary eyes.

Director Henry-Alex Rubin recalls Mr. Bateman half-jokingly remarking that he was making a silent movie. "There was a lot of having to sort of communicate and process the receiving of an answer without talking," says Mr. Bateman. "It could have gone really bad with a lot of eyebrow acting."

The revolution in communicating via text, often on tiny phone screens, is presenting filmmakers with a huge challenge: How do you show it on the big screen?

More and more movies and television shows are mirroring the real world's digital transformation of everyday life, but watching people send text messages isn't exactly the stuff of riveting spectacle. It's no wonder filmmakers agonize over how to make it cinematic. Close-ups on smart phones, often requiring the use of green screens and extra-large fonts in post-production, don't pack much punch compared with Bogart and Bacall banter. The new infatuation with depicting text on screen can distract from the action.

"We're just starting to get a handle on how to do this in a dramatic way," says Mr. Rubin.