She'll Follow You.
A Single White Female for the age of Instagram, wickedly funny black comedy Ingrid Goes West stars Aubrey Plaza as a mentally unstable internet stalker and Elizabeth Olsen as the vapid social media celebrity on whom she is fixated.
We first encounter Plaza’s glassy-eyed Ingrid Thornton in mid meltdown, gate-crashing the wedding of a stranger she deludedly imagines is her friend simply because she follows her on Instagram. A spell in a mental institution follows, but on her release it isn’t long before Ingrid has found another fixation in the shape of Olsen’s glamorous social media influencer Taylor Sloane.
Captivated by Taylor's photo-ready life of hipster cool and funded by an inheritance from her mother, Ingrid leaves her Pennsylvania home and heads for Venice Beach, California, the well-heeled bohemian neighbourhood where her girl crush lives. There she rents an apartment from Batman-obsessed screenwriter Dan (O’Shea Jackson Jr, last seen playing his father Ice Cube in rap biopic Straight Outta Compton) and sets about infiltrating her idol's circle.
Her efforts are cringe-makingly funny. She ‘finds’ Taylor’s dog (having first kidnapped the pooch herself), copies her taste and even buys one of her husband’s ghastly artworks. Yet Ingrid’s exertions pay off and she is soon bezzie mates with her heroine. Then Taylor’s loathsome brother Nicky (Billy Magnussen) turns up and sees through Ingrid’s act…
Director Matt Spicer and his co-writer David Branson Smith have gleeful fun satirising the shallowness of social media and the insecurity it engenders. But what makes the film work so well are Plaza and Olsen’s pitch-perfect performances, which keep our sympathies nicely balanced as Ingrid’s hopelessly needy scheme unravels. #Hilarious.
Certificate 15. Runtime 98 mins. Director Matt Spicer
Available on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital from Universal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yELCThCZ5cA
