Ingrid Goes West

Ingrid Goes West

This is a refreshingly different indie kinda-comedy-kinda-thriller that's written by someone who actually understands social media.

Ingrid is an Instagram stalker played by Aubrey Plaza. After striking out with her most recent Instagram obsession, she sets her eyes on up-and-coming Instagram star Taylor, who lives in LA. Ingrid moves to LA, and things escalate from there.

I've been a fan of Aubrey Plaza's since Funny People, and of course adored her on Parks and Rec, so getting to see her play a completely different kind of character was an absolute treat. She rides the line between scary and sympathetic at all times, while showcasing a wide range of emotions that will hopefully get her even more dynamic roles in the future. The rest of the cast is also quite good, particularly O'Shea Jackson Jr. as Ingrid's screenwriting, Batman-obsessed landlord, getting way more laughs from me than I expected. Elizabeth Olsen plays her grounded part well, but since she's playing the somewhat "normal" character it's much more difficult for her to be memorable.

This film nails Instagram in both aesthetic and actual use. They use the perfect locations, fashion, color palette, and captions to make the movie feel like a real Instagram commercial, just a lot more unsettling. It's also a great example of using social media accurately in a film. Lots of modern movies that use social media are written by people who don't actively use it, and it often shows. But Ingrid Goes West not only knows exactly how Instagram works and what the people who get famous using it are often like, but how to use it as an effective tool in telling its story by essentially having it function as a tracking device.

My only complaint with this movie is the same one I always have: I wanted them to go further and crazier. The first half of the film is an excellent ramp-up that's smart and puts us exactly where we want to be in the story in ways that are both logical and interesting. But once it goes past a certain point, it needs to really escalate. Without going into spoilers, things start to go crazy with a fairly shocking event, but that ends up being the peak of the movie's insanity. Once they hit that point in the story they had free reign to go as far as they wanted, whether it be thrilling, hilarious, horrifying, or all of the above, but instead they chose to just have it come back down. While the ending is quite good and fitting for the theme of the film, it didn't feel very satisfying because the second and third acts didn't feel very eventful. I understand that the film was trying to be grounded, but it always seemed to have one foot in reality and the other in absurdity. My advice would have been to not keep both feet in the same place for the entire film, and instead have a steady shift from reality, to the line between reality and absurdity, to full-on Nightcrawler-level absurdity. It's riskier, but it would also create a much bigger payoff.

I'd recommend this movie to those looking for something new and different, and also to anyone who frequently uses social media as it's both an accurate representation and a fun cautionary tale. But if you're looking for something truly thrilling and crazy, you won't quite get it here.