Ingrid Goes West

While this movie might end up looking obsolete in a few years depending on where technology goes, sociologically, it's damn on point and prescient. Not so much funny as dark and disturbing, it did a good job of showing how empty everyone was, even the so-called "heroes." The ending was a nice touch as well.

The main thing is that it's objectively a good movie: the acting is good, the movie looks like it was made for Instagram (obviously, the point), the issues raised here are very relevant nowadays. To sum it up, it is a good movie. Still, I cannot say I will ever want to watch it again or that I enjoyed it that much in the first place. The reason for that (my incredibly subjective reason) is that there is nothing that revealing. The issues raised in the movie (loneliness, social media addiction, its shallowness, and the users' search for that shallowness and faux perfection) are all "right", they are all serious problems able to ruin lives or at least distort your view of life. However, most of us clearly understand it, and thus the plot was perfectly predictable because it's a mirror of the current situation in the world - how can it not be predictable? Summing it up, despite all the highs of the movie, to me, it looked like a high schooler's moralistic essay: all the right thoughts, all the right intentions, but far from being as non-conformist or groundbreaking and revealing as the author believes.

With living in a world of technology of the internet and face book, twitter, iPhone, and Instagram this movie "Ingrid Goes West" is a good take and spin on the obsession that it has caused many as people will go to great means to be accepted and loved. It's a lonely world for some yet it seems that never goes away when the obsessions go to extremes. As some can never get enough or take no for an answer. Ingrid(Aubrey Plaza)is a lonely Pennsylvania girl who needs friends as she's rejected and bored and wants a change of pace and a new beginning, so when she notices an Instagram star on her iPhone out in California, you guessed it a trip to move to the west coast is on Ingrid's to do list! It's already a slow obsession to be a new friend to this social media star named Taylor Sloane(Elizabeth Olsen) as this attractive bright blond girl seems to have it! Ingrid has a dream come true by getting to meet Taylor and it seems like friendship is rolling along only it's not as each has a different lifestyle and social status. After Ingrid feels rejected and isolated you guessed it she becomes a stalker and it's a dangerous little cat and mouse game with Taylor and others around them. Overall good film that looks at how social media and the need for acceptance will drive someone to go to many means and they will do anything it's an obsession that will lead even close to death. This is a film to check out as it's in step with our current times.

Ingrid Goes West is a drama that focuses on a young woman who has recently lost her mother and becomes obsessed with filling the void she has left behind by finding a best friend trough stalking trendy bloggers on Instagram. This is the way she discovers Taylor, one of these trendy bloggers, who is situated in LA. In pursuit of what she believes will make her happy, Ingrid goes to California to find Taylor and befriend her, only to find out that this Instagram celebrity's life is basically one big lie. Even though the message of the movie is a powerful and important one, highlighting that the age of being who ever you want to be is literally here because an impressive Instagram feed can fool everyone into thinking you live the perfect life, it still feels like it has been said so many times before. I couldn't help but be bored at certain points, because by the time Ingrid has befriended Taylor you basically know what will happen, it was just too predictable for my taste. I want to point out that something being incorporated in films many times before is absolutely not a bad thing, and the philosophy behind the dark side of social media craze is a very interesting topic, but if it's done it needs to be done right and bring a fresh perspective, something I feel this movie just could not deliver on. I will give it points for good acting and a good script, but other than that there is not much more worth giving credits for.

Ingrid Goes West is a pleasant surprise of a comedy movie, discussing obsessive personality in the social media-centric age we live in. Plaza's performance as the titular character is outstanding, with Jackson, Olsen, Russell giving great supporting roles that make their slice of Los Angeles feel extremely personal. To top off the experience, the cinematography is vibrant and the plot is a sweet balance between melancholic and hilarious. I recommend the movie to anyone looking for a unique comedy or commentary on social media.

Old goats like me who had a Spyder bike with playing cards in the spokes, posted letters without zip codes, and knows that Elgin-2745 is a phone number do not get this generation. Take phones: to us they are devices used to speak privately (pre-NSA) to other persons over long distances, not substitutes for maps, post cards, or movie screens, and what's wrong with a flip phone, anyway? Other than the town gossip, we did not live on our phones. But you guys do. Specifically, you live on social media, which is the modern equivalent of a party line (you don't know what a party line is? Punk.). You claim to have 675 friends. No you don't. You have two. The rest are stalkers. Ingrid Goes West is about one of those stalkers, Ingrid Thorburn, played by Aubrey Plaza (the cute version of the Shadow King in Syfy's Legion). She is a wacked-out cyber troll who believes she has close personal relationships with anyone she "likes." After spending several months in an institution for a rather unfortunate incident involving one of those "friends," Ingrid latches on to a hippie chick (we're using my generation's terms, okay?) in Los Angeles named Taylor Sloane (played by the Scarlet Witch) who innocently replies to one of Ingrid's posts, which is a reply to one of Taylor's posts showing her breakfast. Right there: who takes pictures of their food and sends it to everybody? Certainly not us old goats. Ingrid converts her mother's inheritance to cash and moves to Los Angeles, renting a townhouse owned by Batman. Well, not really, it's owned by Dan Pinto (played by Ice Cube, Jr) who is a Batman-obsessed screenwriter wannabe working on a script for some unofficial Batman treatment…in other words, fanfic. Ingrid then sets out to make her imagined BFF her actual BFF through stalking and dognapping and dinners and binge drugging and stealing Batman's truck and even buying the house next door. Hilarious, right? Depends on your generational viewpoint. From theirs, this is a comedy of errors and mistaken identity and farce and misstep, like The Big Lebowski. From mine, it's tragedy, and not even tragicomedy, although there are some rather funny moments. The underlying tone is menace and insanity and desperation. Everything is fake, from Taylor's bohemia to her husband's artistic ability; everything is performance art, from shopping to girls' nights out, and it is all displayed worldwide one selfie at a time. The only real person in the movie is Pinto, who has a legitimate, heart-wrenching reason to become Batman. Ingrid, trying to keep up with her new "friends," escalates things to the point of near- murder. Ingrid becomes undone when Taylor's brother steals her phone and discovers her scamming, but, really, why was that necessary? A simple Google search would have accomplished the same thing; indeed, would have disclosed her previous incarceration because she doesn't use a fake name. Why not? Because Ingrid and everybody else inhabit an alternate reality (which used to be a science fiction concept) so insular that anyone who replies to your post must be you. A generation that considers itself internet hip is internet stupid. And internet redeemed. When Ingrid's lies finally unravel, she does not get what I expect; she gets, instead, what she expects. I scratch my head. You cheer. The space between us.

Ingrid Goes West may prove to be the King of Comedy of the millennial generation. It is a charring and incisive black comedy that smartly uses social media as a means to explore the darker side of human nature – obsession. Anchored by a savagely funny script and a pitch-perfect performance by Aubrey Plaza, Ingrid Goes West is the deviously wicked, unflinchingly bitter, infinitely quotable knockout comedy that at least this writer has been waiting for all year. Ingrid Goes West follows an unhinged and frighteningly relatable social media stalker (Plaza) who finds a new obsession in the form of Instagram photographer and personality Taylor Sloane (Olsen). When Taylor likes one of her comments, Ingrid decides to cash what's left of her inheritance for a move to California. From there she insinuates herself into Taylor's life; trying desperately to assimilate to her new, chic So-Cal lifestyle while refusing the advances of her good-natured landlord Dan (Jackson). The inner torment that plagues Ingrid has an everlasting presence. You can see it in her eyes, her mannerisms, the way she obsesses and thrusts herself through the plot. She remains for the most part, an enigma but not the kind you can find intriguing or sexy. She's more like a void; desperate to distract herself from whom she really is with imagined perfect lives and even more perfect photo filters. To the brilliantly vulnerable Dan, she's suspicious; to the vapid Taylor she becomes a monster. Who is she really? She may not even know. Yet she's not exactly the epitome of an anti-social obsessive. She displays genuine emotional intelligence; even while getting caught up in her own whirlwind of manipulations. Her relationship with Dan provides a glimpse into what she's really about as well as affirmation that she wouldn't stop even if she wanted to. She's less Travis Bickle and more Gene Tierney in Leave Her to Heaven (1945), hopelessly looking for love in all the wrong places; not a sociopath but a histrionic. The satire of Ingrid Goes West has become a bit of a fault line between audiences, critics and critics of a certain age. Those inclined to think scrolling through your phone is an anti-social pastime are liable to think Ingrid Goes West pulls its punches. Ben Kenigsberg of the New York Times wrote the movie "comes close to saying something sharp…but ultimately cops out in the end." Similarly Rex Reed muses Ingrid Goes West "looks more like a tweet than a movie". I'd argue if you take away the trappings of modern technology Ingrid wouldn't cease to be, she'd simply latch onto and unhealthily exploit some other escape such as: radio (Play Misty for Me), books (Misery) or TV (King of Comedy). Sure it'd lack contemporary immediacy and older audiences wouldn't get that extra dopamine fix of laughing at "those stupid kids and their devices," but the painfully human insights would still be very much there. Thus as much as some would like Ingrid Goes West to be a savage takedown of hashtags, Insta-fame and avocado toast, it'd be more accurate to call it a lampooning of human behavior. It aims its sights at the insidiousness of exclusion, and how the need for validation can turn toxic. Additionally it holds up a mirror not just on us in a general sense but holds it up to you and dares you to look into the void. In the case of this movie the void looks like Aubrey Plaza. I suppose there are worse things in the world.

This film's portrayal of obsession and social media taking over modern lives and interests is spot on, and overall it's thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish. Just know what you're getting in to! Too many of the lower reviews are complaints that the film was too dark and not funny enough - this shouldn't reflect on the overall score. The writers had a point to make and they made it well while creating something that is entertaining even at it's saddest moments. It's a far more powerful movie than a lot of people seem to expect but that's not a bad thing. And don't even get me started on the people taking the comedy as some sort of twisted justification for the darker aspects, this film is not at all defending online obsessions or humouring the idea that online attention is important at all. It's simply shown to us from Ingrid's (well-established) sick mind. If the premise interests you at all then it's a safe bet you'll enjoy the film, just don't expect a light afternoon comedy based on a dark concept, it is very much a miserably solid display of that dark concept with comedic aspects lining the fabric.

Aubrey Plaza is *always* fun to watch. It seems as if she can pull off any role thrown at her. The trailer for Ingrid Goes West looks like a comedy, but this film is deep. In a genius writing move, Ingrid is given almost no backstory, because it doesn't matter. She's as much a force as she is a person. Calculating, manipulative, expertly building an Instagram brand by leeching off a popular grammer, she represents all that is obsessive and voyeuristic about social media, taken to a toxic, narcissistic extreme. And, everyone is to blame except the lovable Dan, who is perhaps the most sympathetic character of all. The film is engaging all the way through as Ingrid rises, then falls, then explodes, then rises again, all of it fueled by her desperate need for validation by association. The story plays like a long metaphor, a morality play examining the social media phenomenon from several angles with power and a deftness that lands it's blows softly and unexpectedly. I highly recommend this film!

Aubrey Plaza has a knack for choosing the right small, just off the radar indie projects. In the past, she starred in overlooked gems such as, The To Do List, Safety Not Guaranteed and The Little Hours, which came out earlier this year. Ingrid Goes West is her most recent indie gem, and perhaps her best. Ingrid Goes West features Plaza as Ingrid (duh!), who has some umm… let's call them social issues. She equates passing interactions on social media as meaningful friendships. These virtual relationships quickly turn into real obsessions. Her latest target is a California Insta-girl named Taylor (played by Elizabeth Olsen, whose stock is rising rapidly of late), who responded to one of Ingrid's carefully thought out comments on her latest food photo. Taylor's winking advice to "check it out next time you're in LA" is all the incentive Ingrid needs. She grabs her backpack full of newly-received cash (no spoilers on how she got the money) and headed west to spy on Taylor/become friends with Taylor. Through some mild stalking and other questionable behavior, Ingrid becomes fast friends with Taylor. Desperate to win and retain Taylor's affection through any means necessary, Ingrid takes advantage of her overly trusting landlord/next-door neighbor and Batman superfan, Dan (played by O'Shea Jackson Jr. who is about one more praiseworthy performance away from breaking free from people calling him "Ice Cube's son" and just calling him O'Shea Jackson Jr.) At first, Ingrid pays little attention to Dan unless she needs something from him. But he soon shows her that he's the only one that truly likes her for who she really is. It's the most heartfelt moment in a movie that often hides behind its humor. Of course, with Ingrid things cannot remain rosy for long. She's a tornado of dysfunction and terrible decision making. Her dream world unravels and in the end the audience is faced with a rather confusing message about the value and dangers of social media. The movie's stars make everything work. Give credit to first-time director Matt Spicer too, but it's hard to imagine pulling off this level of emotional vacillation with any other group of actors. Especially in the opening 20 minutes or so, each passing moment evokes a new emotion so rapidly and seemingly randomly that it's almost as if Spicer was tossing dice and choosing a different emotion based on the roll. We dart between heartbreaking, heartwarming, hilarious, and shakily anxious. This is not a comfortable viewing experience. We catch of glimpse of Ingrid's humanity early on and she remains empathetic throughout despite behaving in mostly distasteful ways. Plaza deserves commendation for her performance, which is both nuanced and unhinged. Ultimately, Dan reigns as the most likable character, even if he may be the most naïve. In a story of full of phonies, he always stays true to himself. That has got to count for something.