Ingrid Goes West (2017)
Directed by Matt Spicer
Ingrid becomes obsessed with a social network star named Taylor Sloane who seemingly has a perfect life. But when Ingrid decides to drop everything and move west to be Taylor's friend, her behaviour turns unsettling and dangerous.
3 connections found
View:
3 films that influenced Ingrid Goes West
What critics say influenced Ingrid Goes West
Spicer could’ve gone any number of directions with his script, from a cynical “All About Eve”-style scenario, through which Ingrid learns from and eventually surpasses her idol, to the violent horror vibe of a movie like “The Fan,” where Taylor winds up in physical peril.
It boasts some notable titles: “All About Eve” (1950), “Strangers on a Train” (1951), “The King of Comedy” (1982).
Neither Ingrid's obsession nor the movie's ironic denouement will surprise anyone familiar with Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy (1983), but Plaza puts her demented character across with an angry, ravenous performance.
Inviting too many comparisons for such a singularly modern satire should, “Ingrid Goes West” feels more like a millennial riff on “The King of Comedy” than it does anything else, the film is at its best when mocking us for how we’ve taken incredible technology and used it to make commercials for our own lives.
The extremes of our love-hate relationship with social media have also been examined in: documentary film Catfish (2010), which centers on Yaniv Schulman’s online relationship with Megan, a young woman he meets on Facebook; Spike Jonze’s Her (2013), focusing on Theodore Twombly’s (Joaquin Phoenix) connection with his intelligent, seemingly sentient computer operating system, Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson); and the 2016 techno-thriller Nerve , in which protagonist Venus “Vee” Delmonico (Emma Roberts) engages in an online truth-or-dare video game, where, as a “player,” she accepts dares from “watchers” to receive monetary rewards, allowing her to advance through the game.