Ingrid Goes West (MA). Director: Matt Spicer. Starring: Aubrey Plaza, Elizabeth Olsen, O'Shea Jackson Jr, Wyatt Russell, Billy Magnussen. 98 minutes
A young woman, Ingrid (Plaza) pours over wedding photos posted on social media. The camera finds her face in close-up; she is smiling, and weeping profusely. After a few long seconds she gathers herself, steps out of her car, and walks into a wedding reception. She locates the bride, who is perplexed to see her, but greets her by name. In response Ingrid delivers her a face-full of mace. 'Thanks for inviting me, you f***ing c***,' the intruder spits.
The moment is shocking not just because of its violence, but for the dissonance between Ingrid's proximity to the celebratory events and her alienation from them, embodied moments earlier by her highly emotional participation in them in a merely virtual sense. We can see immediately that Ingrid has lost the boundary between her relationships to the online and the 'real' world. So severe is the loss that subsequent to these events she spends time in an institution.
Ingrid Goes West is a black comedy for the Instagram age. On the face of it, it's a cautionary tale against relying on social media as a source of relationships and self-identity. That's a fairly retrograde take-home though, as it precludes the possibilities for genuine connection and community that such platforms occasion. The film is actually more than that; it's an exploration of loneliness and isolation that is universal despite a context that is very much of this moment.
In particular, it is a critique of the impacts materialist celebrity culture can have on a vulnerable person such as Ingrid. There is no doubt she is an Insta-addict; even after her stint in the institution we see her grasping for her phone upon waking, mechanically scrolling and liking while she is on the toilet or brushing her teeth. Soon she finds a new obsession; Los Angeles based Instagram celebrity Taylor Sloane (Olsen), whom she discovers via a spread in a glossy magazine.
The film's treatment of Taylor's life on Insta is fiercely satirical; it's a living biography constructed from photos of trendy cafes and salons, inspirational quotes and carefully honed hashtags. Ingrid in her loneliness is smitten, and soon decides to up and move to LA, opening a new Instagram account and preparing to create for herself a new identity using Taylor's as a template. Upon arriving in