Ingrid Goes West

Dark comedy with Aubrey Plaza and Elizabeth Olsen? Sign me in.

But what I got, was definitely not a comedy. There are some laughs in this film, but mostly it's a heavy drama about unbalanced, desperate people. And a very well made one.

'Ingrid Goes West' is so real, so brutal, that it makes the audience uncomfortable, but you still can't look away. This is what the world of social media is when taken to extreme. It's reality for thousands of people, if not for millions.

Sad, yet important and powerful, look at our society today.

Ingrid Goes West is a pleasant surprise of a comedy movie, discussing obsessive personality in the social media-centric age we live in. Plaza's performance as the titular character is outstanding, with Jackson, Olsen, Russell giving great supporting roles that make their slice of Los Angeles feel extremely personal. To top off the experience, the cinematography is vibrant and the plot is a sweet balance between melancholic and hilarious. I recommend the movie to anyone looking for a unique comedy or commentary on social media.

While this movie might end up looking obsolete in a few years depending on where technology goes, sociologically, it's damn on point and prescient. Not so much funny as dark and disturbing, it did a good job of showing how empty everyone was, even the so-called "heroes." The ending was a nice touch as well.

The main thing is that it's objectively a good movie: the acting is good, the movie looks like it was made for Instagram (obviously, the point), the issues raised here are very relevant nowadays. To sum it up, it is a good movie.

Still, I cannot say I will ever want to watch it again or that I enjoyed it that much in the first place. The reason for that (my incredibly subjective reason) is that there is nothing that revealing. The issues raised in the movie (loneliness, social media addiction, its shallowness, and the users' search for that shallowness and faux perfection) are all "right", they are all serious problems able to ruin lives or at least distort your view of life. However, most of us clearly understand it, and thus the plot was perfectly predictable because it's a mirror of the current situation in the world - how can it not be predictable?

Summing it up, despite all the highs of the movie, to me, it looked like a high schooler's moralistic essay: all the right thoughts, all the right intentions, but far from being as non-conformist or groundbreaking and revealing as the author believes.

The plot line and comedy/drama categorisation do not reveal much when it comes to this film. It is a good thing since it offers more than you would hope for. I would say it is more of a drama than a comedy, there are some quite serious issues covered in this story.

Aubrey Plaza is great as Ingrid, she managed to find a nice balance between being unhinged, vulnerable, obsessed and yet her familiar facial expressions will sometimes still make you laugh.

I believe that the obsession with social media was portrayed nicely here, I am sure you all know or knew someone who is practically glued to their phone and can't imagine lasting a day without it. Instagram, Facebook and other media can really make a person feel a bit depressed since everyone seems happy all the time, they eat at nice restaurants, travel to nice places, go to great parties where in reality it is all a bit phony which is another thing that this film shows. There are not many people who would post something sad because they are having a bad day or are going through a rough patch, the fear of being judged is always present and it would break the balance of everything being seemingly perfect with everyone. If you combine that with a troubled personality or a mental illness, the results can be pretty bad. And that basically describes Ingrid.

It is a solid indie film with good performances and something to think about.