THE COLUMNIST
Sadly, not a film about our Jamie (Hollywood, the offer still stands).
FILM
OUT 12 MARCH CINEMAS, DIGITAL HD
It’s just the internet, it’s not real,” says a bored copper when journalist Femke Boot (Katja Herbers) decides to report the online abuse she receives every single day. Her ‘crime’? Being a woman in the public eye. Her solution? Pretty drastic as it turns out. The skill of this Dutch black comedy, directed by Ivo van Aart and written by Daan Windhorst, is that it gives equal weight to both.
Poor Femke can’t catch a break. At night we watch her doom-scrolling through death threats, and by day she battles writer’s block, not to mention her noisy neighbour Arjen (Rein Hofman), whose jolly demeanour belies his online racism and misogyny. Like the spider’s web that crosses her path each morning, trolls like Arjen hide in plain sight, a malignant presence their targets are expected to either ignore or brush aside. So when Femke decides to fight back, beginning a spree of D-Fens-style vengeance against the
sad little men who spend their spare time casually making her life hell, it’s hard not to cheer.
Sharply written, crisply shot and mordantly funny, The Columnist is blessed with a strong central performance from Herbers (Evil, Westworld) that keeps us on Femke’s side no matter how many atrocities she commits. The result is a rare beast: a midnight movie with a message that entertains and illuminates. Often, you won’t know whether to laugh or cry. Matt Glasby