De kuthoer

It's very easy to interact with people you don't know on the internet; and it's very easy to be very mean to people you don't know. But might it also not be easy to take revenge on them? This is the central idea of Dutch comedy-thriller 'The Columnist', which keeps a mostly straight face even as its plot turns farcical. The central character is well-constructed, and there is a serious point about the toxic nature of social media. 'The Columnist' never quite reaches the peak of 'Black Mirror', but it's nicely paced and might just make you think twice about the difference between how you behave online and in real life.

Columnist and author Femke Boot (Katja Herbers) rails against the online discourse which includes countless disturbing attacks against her and her daughter Anna. The police dismisses her. She's struggling to write her next book. She spots nasty racist misogynist tweets apparently coming from her noisy neighbor. She goes on a murderous revenge rampage.

This is fine. I am most intrigued with Katja acting in her native tongue. She sounds like I expected. A more compelling story would have somebody else catfishing as the noisy neighbor. She kills an innocent and gets blackmailed for it. That's a good twist. Some of these people must be using burner accounts. It's trolling 101. It's too easy to track down these people and I don't believe that Femke can kill these men with her hands. I do like the freedom of speech argument. This is fine.

Haters are gonna die.

They say, don't read the comments, and sadly, that's true. For every one positive comment, there has to be 10 negative ones written by some poor hack living in its parents' basement. I'm usually good at mocking them, but they do feed off that. I wouldn't want to meet them. Femke Boot would.

Meet The Columnist. Someone hated for her opinions online. Fortunately for her, unlucky for them, they all live within driving distance. And when the title character confronts her 1st hater in person...she gets a taste of it.

I rather liked this affair. It's not perfect and the lead performers (Mom, Boyfriend & Daughter) aren't very convincing, but I was intrigued enough to see where this led.

Worth a watch for anyone who gets hateful comments, but has no other outlet to digest them. HINT: either delete the comments, or laugh at that person...or bot.

***

Final Thoughts: This was in Dutch, but I would LOVE to see an American, independent remake of this. No studio interference and someone in the lead who can play that Serial Mom dual role perfectly. I suggest Laura Linney. I totally can see her losing it on screen while improving as she's becoming the beast she is.

The Columnist (De kuthoer) is well made gore-thriller about a female newspaper columnist which gets a lot of abuse online, and decides she won't take it. She starts confronting the abusers, which also are among those close to her life. The film is well played, especially by the main role, which really is 100% believable. Production value is good, and we all know how it is to surf the net, reading all the nastiness. Should we all prevail, or do something about it? This movie told in a somewhat hitchcockian style is a ripe thriller and a joyful watch - if you like films on the more macabre and dark funny side. The film is far from laugh out loud funny, but you tend to enjoy the cozy nasty bits, due to only the way it is made.

Fancy a bit of mindless cyber-bullying/trolling? I wouldn't point that finger too fast, you might just pick the wrong 'victim'. Such as Femke Boot, columnist and would-be novelist with a bout of writer's block and an attack of (cyber) trolls vicious enough to make anyone head for the nearest Wi-Fi-free coldspot before you can say firefox adblocker. Femke, ( perfectly played by Katja Herbers), is not anyone, however, and the ensuing blackly comic madness, while never totally over the top, is always slightly skewed from reality, Stepford Wives-ish, so that the film could -almost- be called whimsical. Plenty of fun.