The Movie Snob sounds off.
Ingrid Goes West (F).
I rarely give a movie an F unless it actually makes me angry. This one did.
Producer and star Aubrey Plaza (Safety Not Guaranteed) plays Ingrid, a sad, lonely, and mentally ill young woman. She’s an internet stalker, and the movie opens with Ingrid behaving badly and ending up in a mental institution. When she gets out of the institution, she finds a new social-media darling to stalk — Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen, Liberal Arts), a West Coaster who’s always posting stuff about her fabulous life. So Ingrid takes the small inheritance her recently deceased mother left her and moves to L.A., where she first stalks, then ingratiates herself with, Taylor and her husband Ezra (Wyatt Russell, 22 Jump Street). Despite Ingrid’s odd behavior, her friendly landlord Dan (O’Shea Jackson Jr., Straight Outta Compton) takes a shine to her. Because Ingrid is a mentally ill pathological liar, none of this can end well. Although IMDB lists this movie as both a drama and a comedy, it is not very dramatic and not at all funny. And my tolerance for movies about mental illness that are anything but tragic is low and getting lower all the time.
*** SPOILER ALERT *** READ NO FURTHER TO AVOID SPOILERS ***
I probably would have given this movie a D, but the ending made me angry. After Ingrid’s stalking of Taylor has ended in disaster, and she has spent all of her inheritance, she video-records herself confessing to being a weird, lonely loser and then downing a bunch of pills. Naturally the video “goes viral,” and good-hearted Dan somehow tracks her down and gets her emergency medical attention that saves her life. (Even though by this point she has nearly gotten him killed in a harebrained scheme to keep her stalking of Taylor from being exposed.) She wakes up in a hospital room filled with balloons and has a phone filled with uplifting messages from complete strangers. And she smiles. End movie. Isn’t this a strong “triggering” message for sad, lonely, and mentally ill people out there who can’t go more than 5 minutes without checking their smartphones? Try to commit suicide in front of the whole world and everyone will love you? I haven’t exhaustively researched this film online, but the few reviews I’ve read don’t mention this at all, so maybe I’m overreacting. But I thought it sent a terrible message. And, by the way, it defied belief that Dan would come to her hospital room at the end and be all smiles instead of wanting to strangle her himself.
The Movie Court 