Ingrid Goes West

People who review movies -- including myself -- often use some variation of the phrase "there's a good movie buried within this" to imply that the good idea behind the movie exists, and perhaps with a better script, better editing, or something else, that good idea would blossom into something great. Ingrid Goes West has, at least, three great movies buried within it. On its own, it's fine, but any one of those three movies would've been better, because it would've done what this movie is afraid to do. Ingrid (played by Aubrey Plaza in a truly un-Aubrey Plaza-like role) is in a bad place. Her mom, who she considers her best friend, has passed away. Ingrid is suffering from some deep (and, admittedly, ill-defined) mental health issues beyond that, as she latches onto people on social media whom she thinks are living the life she wants. After one of these relationships goes very sour, she moves out to California and latches onto an Instagram influencer, Taylor (played by a sunny Elizabeth Olson), subordinating her own identity with Taylor's in the hopes of getting the validation and love and acknowledgement Ingrid so desperately craves. What Ingrid doesn't see is that Taylor is just as empty and lacking in personal identity and conflicted with mental health issues as she is, and in fact may be worse off because Taylor doesn't even recognize it. Ingrid mistakes the glamorous photos of expensive handbags and avocado toast and hashtags as the elements of a glamorous life; she confuses the menu for the meal, the moment for the experience around it. Taylor doesn't even do that; every moment is exploitable, marketable, a vehicle for her brand. She doesn't experience anything, except as a moment in time to be captured and turned into a hashtag. That is a lot of material to use as a backdrop for a movie. It could go in a number of ways, all of which are fertile ground. It could go full-on camp in the vein of What About Bob?. It wouldn't be the most delicate of handling of the situation, but it is there, and could be quite funny. Conversely, it could go for gallows humor like The Cable Guy, satirizing both social media, its effect on those who consume it and those who create it, and turn everything up to 11 to skewer it. Or, it could go full-on horror, like Sissy only not terrible and insulting. The problem with Ingrid Goes West is it decides to go a fourth direction; mild lampooning. It has all the bite of a Mad Magazine movie parody. We get a good look at the symptoms Ingrid suffers from -- she's manipulative, desperate, empty, and dying to be validated -- but there is little to no explanation of why. She's definitely unhinged when pushed too far, but not unhinged enough to be a real threat. Taylor, meanwhile, is narcissistic, vapid, phony, and discards people when the newness of the relationship wears off. Other than being on Instagram and having lots of followers, we don't see how or why she's appealing to Ingrid, and we don't get a sense of how she became Insta-famous. There's hints of Taylor's toxicity shown -- her husband's weariness and disgust with the lifestyle, Taylor's willful blindness to her brother's flaws -- but the movie is loathe to hold her accountable. It wants to discuss the exploitive way influencers peddle an ephemeral ideal to unsuspecting and gullible people, but it doesn't want to hold them accountable; Ingrid is the problem for latching on, says Ingrid Goes West. Taylor's lifestyle -- treating people as disposable, treating life as marketing, never experiencing anything for herself, disregarding her partner's desire for privacy -- is never really questioned. Only Ingrid's motives and issues are questioned here. And yes, Ingrid does have problems, and when they reach the boiling point, they manifest in terrible ways. But by being so light-hearted about the topic while saddling it with a standard stalker/stalked dynamic, the movie loses all its bite. If it were an outright horror movie, Ingrid's clinginess becomes terrifying, and the stalking aspect makes sense. If this were a true dark satire, Taylor would be held under the microscope just as much. Ingrid is doing bad things, but she's not a villain; Taylor did not ask for this person to latch onto her and try to suck away her life, but she's not a victim. Both are both. This movie is afraid to pick a direction, so it settles for an awkward middle ground. It should go for the jugular, and it settles for a paper cut. If it sounds like I'm really down on this movie, I'm not. It's a decent movie. Everybody in this movie, from the two leads to O'Shea Jackson Jr. to Wyatt Russell are all great. The movie is shot beautifully; southern California looks both like a paradise and a superficial hellhole. Plaza, especially, knocks it out of the park, playing against her normal bitchy/goth type, giving Ingrid a pitiable sadness and desperation. I did enjoy this movie. I just can see how this movie could achieve what it's saying it's trying to do and be so much better for it. Instead, it pulls its punches. That's not hashtag living your best life.