Ingrid Goes West
Cert: 16; Now showing
According to director Matt Spicer, this project came about following a chat with co-writer David Branson Smith about a friend who is an “Instagram influencer”. For those still living in a semi-normal world, this is someone who makes a living posting snaps of mundane but manicured scenes that depict an idyllic life. This individual, however, was noticing that one of her 200,000 followers was mimicking her snaps, look and even the way she spoke.
The outcome is this muddled and excruciatingly dark comedy-drama that, given what we’re starting to discover about the health risks of social media addiction, is hard to laugh at.
We first see Ingrid (Aubrey Plaza) a distraught twenty-something, crashing a wedding and spraying mace in the bride’s face. After treatment at a psychiatric facility, she finally rejoins the outside world. The outside world quickly becomes the online world when she discovers Instagram personality Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen) and forms an obsession with her apparently perfect LA life. After deciding that the two must somehow become besties, Ingrid uses her inheritance to move to LA and sets about worming her way into Taylor’s “perfect” life.
Somewhere in here is a wry, Baumbach-like comedy about this warped era of online façades and screen addicts, but Ingrid is too tragic and disturbing a protagonist to allow for real fun. There are, however, a fine spread of performances (Olsen excels) and much food for thought (never a bad thing).