Caught another obscure indie flick at the theater today – Ingrid Goes West, starring Aubrey Plaza and that’s all I knew going in. I dig Aubrey Plaza so figured it was worth the risk for whatever the flick was.
Plaza plays a dangerously unstable social media obsessed lonely person who needs help. Instead, she notices a woman living the dream on Instagram and decides to move out to LA and find her and become her friend. It’s kind of like a more sad, darkly funny version of Single White Female, I guess. Told from the stalker’s point of view. Plaza doesn’t appear dangerous, just obsessive, awkward, lonely, and sad. Her performance is really very good.
Elizabeth Olson plays her obsession and she does some nice tight-rope walking too. She’s a vain California hipster artist who, in her own way, is also obsessed with social media to sell her brand. She’s just not mentally unstable about it.
The fact these two become friends sets up an interesting dynamic between two people who are both unlikable in certain ways but aren’t villains. Both have good points. That said, we are following an unstable stalker through the movie and, while sometimes sympathetic, she’s hard to actually like. Which is the point of the film, to be fair.
Pretty good flick with a really good star performance by Plaza who is asked to do more outright acting than I’ve seen from her. The overall story is hard to recommend unless you want to see a dark, twisted character study that’s darkly funny and sometimes genuinely sad.
Score: 78