Review of Ingrid Goes West (2017) by Spangle — 26 Aug 2017

A truly challenging watch from beginning to end, Ingrid Goes West is one of those films that is often disturbing, frightening, darkly comedic, and oh so cringey. No matter how smart and funny it is, the cringey actions of Ingrid Thorburn (Aubrey Plaza) keep the film as being one that is often best watched through the gaps between one's fingers. Spiraling out of control as she stalks and befriends social media influencer Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen), strikes up a romance with landlord Dan Pinto (O'Shea Jackson Jr.), and moves to Los Angeles, Ingrid is a woman with a few screws loose in her head. A tragic figure, she serves as the gateway for director Matt Spicer to critique modern culture, celebrity worship, and reveal the damage both have done to those who partake or follow these vapid and fake human beings that proliferate social media. Equal parts funny, dark, and sad, Ingrid Goes West is an excellent feature debut for Spicer.

From the very get go, we are introduced to the world of Ingrid. Using Instagram extensively and being hurt by a "friend" that did not invite her to her wedding, Ingrid resorts to stalking the woman's instagram, crying over the wedding photos, and then showing up to pepper spray the beaming bride. Locked up in a mental hospital, healing, and soon released, Ingrid decides to get a new start in Los Angeles after reading a magazine ominously calls Taylor Sloane "your next girl crush". A classic social media influencer with sponsored posts, "deep" quotes with stupid photos, and living in a constant state of vacation, Taylor is the perfect target for Ingrid. Working her way in Taylor's life by stealing her dog and then returning it the next day, Ingrid befriends Taylor and her husband Ezra (Wyatt Russell) effortlessly and quickly catapults to minor stardom after she is included in an Instagram post by Taylor. Meanwhile, she uses her inheritance from her mother's death to rent an apartment from Dan and abuses his trust by both taking his car all day, missing a planed appointment with him that she agreed to in order to borrow his car, and by wrecking that very same car. What ensues is an often chilling portrait of modern society and the damaging effects social media has had.

Chief amongst these critiques is Spicer's demonstration of how life is now lived through phones and social media. Part of it is certainly being obsessed with news and what is happening, but much of it is in the desperate search for affirmation. By liking posts on Instagram and commenting constantly, Ingrid hopes to create new friends and be as popular as the girls she sees on the site. In a life of solitude after her mother's death, this world of social media is her only opportunity for human interaction and she makes the very most of this chance. Yet, she is hardly the only one. Taylor lives her life in a similar fashion, yet is never called deranged for the same behavior. She lives behind a screen, posts constantly to remain popular, and forgets to actually live life in the process. Even worse, her world vision is so warped by social media that she convinces Ezra to quit his job to make paintings where he just takes somebody else's work, tosses a social media buzzword like "#SQUADGOALS" on it, and then sell it for over $1,000. This constant and desperate search for affirmation in the eyes of followers, shows the dangerous impact social media has had on our world. Emotion, feeling, experience, and life, have become disposable. In their place, false compliments and shallow popularity have taken their place with people valuing themselves solely based upon how many followers they have and how many likes they get. Prior to her discovering that Ingrid is a psycho, Taylor is great friends with her. However, once Harley (Pom Klementieff) - a social influencer with 1 million followers - arrives in town, Taylor forgets all about Ingrid. Even her husband feels slighted by her new lifestyle, as she was once a normal girl with no friends in Los Angeles, but would now do anything for followers. By sacrificing herself and her own personality in the name of becoming famous on Instagram, Taylor has lost herself in this world and, for many, the same exact thing occurs. Social media has become people's reality with a phone not just being a device to call or text occasionally, but rather a life support machine that serves as a person's only connection to the outside world. In Ingrid Goes West, we see Taylor and Ingrid do drugs, blow their money, and practically sell their soul, to gain any semblance of popularity. For them, nothing is too steep a price for a like on Instagram.