Theatrical Experience - Ingrid Goes West

Ingrid Goes West

Director - Matt Spicer

Writers - David Branson Smith and Matt Spicer

Starring - Aubrey Plaza, Elizabeth Olsen, Wyatt Russell, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Billy Magnussen

According to Wikipedia, Instagram is a photo-sharing application that has over 700 million registered users that have uploaded over 40 billion photos. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential social networks in the world." I guess that makes it a real thing and not something made up for this movie as a sort of pseudo-Black Mirror satire about people and their phones. Never would have guessed that.

Ingrid Goes West is a dark comedy about an Instagram stalker. Ok, I'll back that up a little. Ingrid Thorburn (Plaza) suffers from an unspecified mental illness that causes her to obsessively follow Instagram "celebrities". She crashes one girl's wedding and after spraying the bride with pepper spray she is sent to a mental hospital to receive treatment. This treatment is shown to immediately wear off when Ingrid comes back into possession of her phone. She finds Taylor Sloane (Olsen) in a magazine article and after making the smallest of connections on Instagram, Ingrid decides to move to Los Angeles to become Taylor's real life friend.

Upon arriving in LA, Ingrid finds housing from Dan Pinto (Jackson Jr.), an aspiring screenwriter obsessed with Batman who is apparently only renting housing until he breaks through with his writing abilities. One small note about Dan worth mentioning even though it's not really important is that he has a weird choice of favourite Batman movie. Batman Forever. Yes, the one with Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones and Val Kilmer. His fanaticism about that particular movie is the basis for a few of the better jokes in this film. Dan and Ingrid strike up an almost flirty relationship almost immediately leading him to doing things a landlord wouldn't normally do for their new tenant such as lending her his vehicle.

Once she's found her housing, Ingrid starts stalking Taylor via Instagram, going to every place being tagged until she is able to follow her to her home. Once Taylor and her husband Ezra (Russell) leave for the evening, Ingrid steals their dog before returning it the next day, playing the hero and entering their lives. As she bonds with Taylor and Ezra we begin to learn more about these characters. Taylor is every stereotype of an Instagram "celebrity" come to life. She forges her identity based solely on her social media profile and treats it as the most important thing in her life. Her life is born of false platitudes, her identity carried on by likes. Even her marriage is falsified. Ezra is grossly unhappy, urged to quit his job to become an artist by Taylor even though his pop art is laughably bad, he sees no way out and just wants the original, pre-Instagram Taylor back.

Despite the lack of anything resembling real substance, Ingrid befriends Taylor and keeps it up spewing as many lies as Taylor posts online. This "friendship" is thrown into a complete flux by the arrival of Taylor's brother Nicky (Magnussen), a hard partying drug addict living in Paris who brings a woman with even more followers than Taylor into the mix. This is where the black comedy really starts to head over the top in the absolute best way crafting great humour out of Catwoman masks, ski masks, Lakers hats and even non-headgear props. These elements really allow the talented cast to shine.

The biggest strength Ingrid Goes West has is it's cast. Plaza continues to display a wide range of talents beyond April Ludgate-style dry wit. O'Shea Jackson Jr. absolutely shines, coming across as the most realistic personality despite the being saddled with the most underwritten role that continuously does things that make absolutely no sense for his character. Wyatt Russell fully sells the downside of the Instagram lifestyle, drinking his despair away in his depressing marriage. Billy Magnusses provides a great, raw, tense, unstable bundle of energy to the film. Elizabeth Olsen is the MVP though. Her commitment to stereotypical white girl Instagram personality is pitch perfect as are the vague hints of real personality that are allowed to creep through the filtered facade. This cast really elevates an disappointingly muddled script.

The vague nature of Ingrid's mental illness blurs her motivations making her a murky character who's wants and desires throughout the movie don't seem consistent. And I mean that in a negative way, not in a "good portrayal of mental illness" way. Does Ingrid want to be Instagram famous herself? Does she just want to be friends with an Instagram celebrity? Does she just want to live like they do? Perhaps she needs a genuine human connection and attempts to do so via social media? Is this movie not actually a character driven comedy but instead meant to be a satire of larger social media culture? The answer to all of those questions is a resounding, "yes, maybe, sometimes."

In the words of Aubrey Plaza's previous boss, Ron Swanson, "Never half ass two things, whole ass one thing." Ingrid Goes West could have benefited from this advice as it finds itself awkwardly trying to be both a character study and broad satire and as a result neither lands. The character study of Ingrid Thorburn gets the closest as her life spirals downwards, her untreated mental illness taking over until she hits bottom but then the urge to become a satire comes back and muddles the ending, satisfying neither story. There is deep potential for this film if either story took the forefront but Spicer, while not completely whiffing, there is plenty of good material, fails to live up to the potential of this premise.

Schurmann Score - 7/10

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