Cinemavenger

   The funniest, nastiest movie reviews anywhere.

Ingrid Goes West

If squashing spiders leads Darwin-style to a race of nigh invulnerable super spiders, then Ingrid Goes West is human Raid.  It's like a Sylvia Plath and Joy Division enema, and it will undoubtedly motivate scores of the weakest, most damaged misfits to off themselves, which will in turn strengthen the gene pool.  Huzzah!

Seriously, any depressed, anomie and angst-ridden types should make sure their affairs are in order before pressing "play" on Ingrid Goes West, a sloppy, wet kiss to the, "And then they'll be sorry!" crowd.  This movie doesn't just noodle on whether suicide is an alternative; it grabs a big, black megaphone and shouts that it's the only logical choice.

Ingrid (Aubrey "Sweet Pain" Plaza) is a fucking nut job.  Her recently dead mother was her only friend.  With no social skills to speak of Ingrid's only contact with other humans happens via social media.  All someone has to do is "like" or comment on one of her posts, and Ingrid considers them her new bestie.

The movie starts with Ingrid macing one such illusory BFF in the middle of her wedding reception because she didn't invite Ingrid, someone she'd barely even met, to the wedding.  After a stint in a psych ward, Ingrid begins obsessing about a semi-famous Instagrammer, Taylor (Elizabeth "The Hot One" Olsen), and decides to move to Los Angeles to glom on to Taylor's life.

Ingrid kidnaps Taylor's dog so that she can pretend to have found it, return it and be Taylor's hero.  Did I mention that Ingrid is nuttier than a PayDay bar?  It doesn't matter that Taylor is a shallow, self-absorbed slitch; Ingrid can't get enough of her.  She even fucks over, on multiple occasions, the only person in LA actually interested in having a real relationship with her, her landlord Dan (O'Shea "Ice Chip" Jackson, Jr.), as she's trying to impress the vapid Instacunt.

If the Coen brothers were just starting out.  And were chicks.  And Millennials.  And were off their meds.  They might've made a movie like Ingrid Goes West.  Generation Zers who were brought up glued to their phones and believing that they'd be rich and famous for doing nothing at all will lap this post-mumblecore shit up.  Suckers.

And for everyone playing at home, this is, in fact, the first time in history that Cinemavenger has given his highest rating, One Finger, to two movies back-to-back.  I must be getting fucking soft.

December 8, 2017  Video release review rather than theatrical release review because stuff.