Ingrid Goes West (2017)

August 25, 2017 10:58 AM

Ingrid Thorburn (Aubrey Plaza) is an unhinged social media stalker with a history of confusing "likes" for meaningful relationships. Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen) is an Instagram-famous "influencer" whose perfectly curated, boho-chic lifestyle becomes Ingrid's latest obsession. When Ingrid moves to LA and manages to insinuate herself into the social media star's life, their relationship quickly goes from #BFF to #WTF. Built around a brilliantly disarming performance from Aubrey Plaza, Ingrid Goes West (winner of the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at Sundance) is a savagely hilarious dark comedy that satirizes the modern world of social media and proves that being #perfect isn't all it's cracked up to be. - Rotten Tomatoes
posted by Krazor (13 comments total)

I hated this movie so much. So much. In fact, I was so angry during it that I might have to watch it again in calmer circumstances to properly assess it.

I think men should stop writing and directing movies about how awful women are.
posted by misfish at 9:21 PM on August 28, 2017

felt like an extended version of an episode of black mirror. One of the actors is actually from an episode.
posted by metafus at 7:37 PM on August 29, 2017

I personally think it's a movie about mourning a lost parent, and if you examine Ingrid's character through that lens it makes it more palatable. I went into it with too much of the marketing on my mind, so I thought it was just an odd satire about people who are obsessed with social media. I can see why this movie would be so hated, but I think the scene with Dan and Ingrid in the restaurant turned me around a little, because I'd like to believe that was a genuine character moment and not just Ingrid manipulating him.
posted by obtuser at 3:44 PM on August 31, 2017

I think it was really interesting, and not at all about awfulness of women specifically -- Nicky was, I think, the most awful character. It was a lot blacker than I imagined -- I thought it was going to be a lighter comedy about internet fame, and not about a person with such lacking sense of self that she tries to become someone else, about the ways we change without noticing.

I'm not sure if we are supposed to see Dan turning into Ezra in the future or not, though -- he seems like he cares for Ingrid and is nice, and sweet, and fairly weak, and that's pretty much where Ezra started. I think Ingrid absolutely was honest, at first, with Dan in the restaurant, and scared herself by being honest.

I do have some questions about Nicky's immediate loathing for Ingrid, which didn't seem earned.
posted by jeather at 1:50 PM on September 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

Dan = Manic Pixie Dream Batman.
posted by Pizzarina Sbarro at 8:30 PM on September 2, 2017

About half an hour into this movie, I realized it was a horror movie, and that made it a lot easier to enjoy, even though I don't like horror movies! It was also fun to think of Nicky as an equivalent of Phillip Seymour Hoffman's character in The Talented Mr Ripley.

It is pretty gross that the two decent people - in a movie full of terrible people - are men.
posted by lunasol at 9:40 PM on September 3, 2017

The cultural touchstones were all perfectly on-point.
posted by lunasol at 9:40 PM on September 3, 2017

On further reflection, I take back saying that the only decent people were men. I think Taylor was an ok person. I'm not sure if the filmmakers want us to see her as terrible, or if we do just because we're seeing her from Ingrid's perspective, but she's ok.

Actually, she's very much like Dicky from The Talented Mr Ripley. The whole thing is basically a remake!
posted by lunasol at 10:15 PM on September 3, 2017

Who is the second decent person? There is one: Dan. And I still think the end shows him turning into an Ezra. (The worst person is clearly Nicky; that other Instagram woman doesn't seem horrible yet, but she is barely a character.)
posted by jeather at 4:29 AM on September 4, 2017

Ezra seems like an ok person too?
posted by lunasol at 7:11 AM on September 4, 2017

I guess I had to watch this because I think Aubrey Plaza is funny. I kinda liked it; though agonizing because I wanted Ingrid to win and get well and so I knew I was going to get dragged through it. It's not really a ruthless black comedy or absurdist romp, but it shades towards those things a little bit. I wish it had cut loose more.

Ingrid is never quite aware that what she's doing is class climbing. It seems like she's really just doing it for weird parasocial relationship reasons, even if in the end she seems happy to be famous (or is it just feeling liked for being herself). If that was what she was doing all along it would have been a story about "real" celebrity, but the movie wanted it to be about her being an instafan and chasing after other people who are chasing real celebrity in a fake it till you make it way. There's a pun lingering in the air about how she finally becomes content wakka wakka.
posted by fleacircus at 1:23 PM on September 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

So I just watched this on Hulu and really enjoyed it. I tend to be very sensitive to misogyny in films and personally, I didn't feel that this film was misogynist at all. It was fully centered on a very flawed woman and her very flawed Influencer counterpart. I also loved Dan the screenwriter - I like jeather's idea about him turning into an Ezra - I can see that.

Before watching, I had put it in the same mental category as 'Gemini,' the film noir starring Zoë Kravitz that also centers on a relationship between a celeb and a fan/admirer, so I was expecting a darker and more violent turn to the movie than what happened. I actually found this to be a sort of darkly comic fairy tale where Ingrid gets happiness at the end... The wrong sort of happiness, but that's where the comedy comes from. I had so much fun watching!
posted by rogerroger at 9:42 PM on January 13, 2019

Oh and lunasol if you ever return to the thread - I actually found Taylor to be quite terrible! At first she seemed like a breezy, kind of fake but harmless social media head, but we slowly found out that she was mean (she had made fun of Ingrid behind her back even when they were "friends"), fickle (she ditched Ingrid in order to latch onto another influencer with 1M followers) and a manipulator. Obviously she wasn't tackling people with tire irons, but she was really quite shitty.
posted by rogerroger at 9:45 PM on January 13, 2019