The Hater

Enjoyed The Hater very much. Excellent cast. I thought Ian Harding was absolutely brilliant. I hope the film will be very successful, it deserves to be. Highly recommend.

40 minutes into this movie and I had a wild guess that the lead of the movie must be the writer and director. I have never seen her before, and it seemed to be a semi-amature vanity production. Sure enough, she wrote, directed and stars in this ridiculous movie. As of the 40 minute mark, it is not even remotely funny, and Dorothy's behavior is simply anxiety inducing. Done.

An interesting premise, but the film falls completely flat. Dorothy never grows or becomes truly likable at any point. Unlike Doc Hollywood or My Cousin Vinny, Dorothy never really comes to respect her hometown or warm to its inhabitants. Midway through, the film also hints that the bullying of Dorothy wasn't necessarily one-sided, but it never delves any further and Dorothy doesn't reflect on any mistakes she might have made. Worse, she starts and ends the film manically spewing unfounded assertions and spouting slogans. Dorothy remains a schemer throughout the campaign, so she never moderates or compromises on her far left environmentalism nor does she manage to learn what folks on the Right think. In short, you're far better off watching a political comedy like The Campaign, where the two main characters aren't political stereotypes and neither is entirely good or entirely bad.

Great movie. Main character seemed annoying at first but does a good job overall. Would have loved it if it mentioned neoliberal donors owning both parties. But its nice to have movies like this as a conservative could never run a grass roots campaign in real life without any large donors as we rely on those. But other than that nicely done. As an open minded conservative this movie does a great job trying to appeal to everyone.

I get it, the beginning was very tense and the protagonist was annoyingly angry. She was supposed to be. The chemistry that the actors have with each other is excellent, and there absolutely is character development/growth for Dorothy. Dorothy does actually reflect on her mistakes and does end up listening to her R opponent, her campaign manager (R), her grandfather (R).