Allow me to be perfectly honest for just a second: the reason I loved Ingrid Goes West so much is not that it is a great independent dark comedy with great performances and a fascinating execution of its twisted story, nor because it is a subversive twist on the classic stalker-thriller trope. The reason I found Ingrid Goes West such a great film is because it is a scathing, unrelenting attack on a part of modern culture I found completely unbearable – the culture of social media influencers becoming famous for doing nothing other than taking a few pictures and promoting brands on their public accounts followed by myriads of people. I guess you could call me a Luddite of sorts, but I find this trend in social media, whereby people get paid for simply existing, just a little unsettling – and clearly Matt Spicer and the team behind Ingrid Goes West  thought the same, because they have created one of the most disturbingly real films of the year.

Ingrid Goes West is about our titular “heroine”, Ingrid Thorburn (Aubrey Plaza), a young woman who has…issues. After an assault on someone she considered her friend, but was actually just the victim of Ingrid’s rabid Instagram stalking, she spends time in an institution, and upon release, she sets her sights on Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen), a Los Angeles-based social media influencer who has a wide following and is relatively famous due to her free-spirited existence and quirky personality that make her a celebrity, and the toast of the social media world. Ingrid journeys to California, and weasels her way into the life of Taylor, becoming her closest friend through manipulative tricks and a little law-breaking here and there, such as stealing Taylor’s beloved dog (very pretentiously named Rothko). However, everything starts to fall apart as Ingrid discovers that Taylor isn’t entirely honest, and the lifestyle of a social media influencer is not necessarily a very friendly world, and it is far easier to fall from grace than to climb up with dignity, especially when your fame is built on your personality rather than any discernible skill other than taking pretty photographs, as is the case with Taylor.

Aubrey Plaza is such a great actress, and this is the second film this year that she had really tremendous leading roles in, the other being the charming The Little Hours. However, while The Little Hours was an entertaining bit of escapism (as films about foul-mouthed nuns tend to be), Ingrid Goes West was a film that had merits as a piece of social commentary, and at the core was a really excellent performance from Plaza, who continues to prove herself as one of the most unconventionally brilliant actresses working today, moving on from her scene-stealing supporting work in television shows such as Parks & Recreation and Legion, and working steadily in major film roles, which give her quite the edge as an actress in terms of growing her career. However, whereas much of her previous work has relied on Plaza’s iconic aloof, detached and uncaring attitude, Ingrid Goes West is something else entirely – she plays a character who is beyond psychotic, but also in search of some hidden meaning to compensate for the crushing loneliness she feels after the loss of her mother and the fact that she is almost entirely alone in the world. It is a deeply moving, but also very terrifying, performance, where Plaza gets a great character to play with, able to expose her insecurities and craft her into someone who is both endearing and revolting, often at the very same time. Plaza is such a great performer, and she is doing some amazing work, and Ingrid Goes West may just be the start of a new and revolutionary state of her career, where her natural, unique talents are used wonderfully.

Beyond Plaza, there are some other great performances here. Elizabeth Olsen plays Taylor Sloane, and she is very good. Perhaps not entirely as fascinating as Ingrid, Taylor is a character with her own insecurities, and they are conveyed well by Olsen, who brings out the perfect blend of peak-of-fame arrogance and false humility in the role. Taylor is a pretty despicable character, perhaps even more so that the mentally unstable Ingrid, mainly because Taylor is dishonest and indecent in the way she creates falsehoods about herself to further her “career” – and when it threatens to come crashing down, she has no qualms with pushing those she claimed were closest to her away to make sure she remains relevant. Olsen is so great in the role, playing Taylor as a sardonically sweet young celebrity who openly rejects but secretly adores her status in society, and will do anything to keep herself relevant and famous enough to never have to have a single responsibility in her life. Wyatt Russell is very good as Ezra, Taylor’s husband who makes a living as an “artist”, with his works just being found paintings with garish hashtag slogans painted over them. O’Shea Jackson Jr. is solid and charismatic as Dan Pinto, the landlord and later love interest of Ingrid, who gets pulled into her web of lies and deceit unintentionally. Billy Magnussen is gloriously evil as the drug-addicted brother of Taylor who exhorts Ingrid for large amounts of money in exchange for his silence on the truth of Ingrid’s supposed friendship with Taylor. The cast is very good, and while no one reaches the heights of Plaza’s performance, everyone pretty much works perfectly together and have great chemistry.

The theme of this film is quite jarring, and I’d expect a little offensive to our generation that is obsessed with smartphones and social media, where the online realm is far more worth investing time in than the physical one. Its true, and I am not against the march of progress, and I do think technology can be wonderful and anything that helps make life a little easier cannot be fully bad. The issue that I have, and it seems to be the same for the makers of Ingrid Goes West, is the matter of social media fame, whereby someone becomes famous not through talent, but through sheer luck, based on looks or wealth, or just being seen by the right people. Very few of these people have actual talent, and simply gain these followings because of who they are, rather than what they do. I look at some of these so-called influencers, and I find myself considering reality shows to be more artistically-resonant, because at least they have the intention of entertaining people to an extent, even if that entertainment results in a huge paycheck for them at the end of the day. Ingrid Goes West makes fun of something that is very touchy and quite sensitive, mainly because humor directed at this generation – my generation – needs to be relatively toothless in order to be acceptable, in the hopes that one doesn’t offend someone.

Ingrid Goes West satirizes the whiny, shrill nature of many individuals in our generation that follow these “influencers” with such reckless adoration and praise, it almost becomes cult-like, and while it isn’t necessarily bad (because very few of these influencers are actually as self-centered as Taylor and do aspire to bring change through their fame to some extent), it is entirely true to state that we are becoming too enamored with YouTube vloggers and Instagram photographers, many of which do very little to earn their widespread fame. Obviously, this doesn’t refer to everyone, but to a vast number of social media celebrities. Ingrid Goes West doesn’t ever say that becoming a celebrity through social media means you are untalented – it just means that whereas only a few decades ago, people had to go to laborious auditions, or have their songs or manuscripts rejected, or flunk out of film school, nowadays, we subscribe to the very vain “everyone can be a star mentality” – and everyone can indeed be a star and become famous – it just gives a cautious warning that many everyone shouldn’t take up that challenge, because, for every Taylor Sloane, who achieves success and fame, there needs to be an Ingrid Thorburn, to simply fail and allow for others to work for their fame and acclaim, rather than simply being given it by taking a few lovely photographs. Yet, keep in mind that these are just the musings (or would it be better to say “ramblings”) of a bitter millennial, so there isn’t much value in what I think, nor what the creators of this film think – this generation is here to stay, like it or not. We should just get used to it, I reckon. It isn’t entirely bad, the issue isn’t with the entire generation, but those few outliers who abuse the limits of fame, and others that don’t understand that these people are humans rather than deities.

Ingrid Goes West is certainly one of the most audacious films of the year – very simple in execution, and often very funny, while also descending into anarchic darkness towards the end that become far more unsettling than any horror film. This is a great psychological dark comedy, and what makes it even more terrifying is how realistic this world the characters inhabit is. This is a world I see around me on social media and one that is impossible to turn away from now. Ingrid Goes West is a film about vanity and self-centered manipulation, and for that reason alone, it is worth a look. Aubrey Plaza and Elizabeth Olsen are fantastic and their chemistry is remarkable, and the film itself is a wonderfully unique and fascinating film. It shines a light on contemporary issues, and serves to be a cautious reminder to just watch out, because it is easier than ever to lose yourself to the fame monster, and as it becomes easier and easier for people to fall into the fell clutches of it, the more vicious and malicious it becomes, and it can lead to some pretty extraordinary downfalls from people who just wanted to be famous. If anything, Ingrid Goes West warns against fame in the most effective way possible: just being a disturbingly realistic portrayal of the way the world is. It may not drive you to destroy your phone, but it may just unsettle you enough to allow you to consider the boundary between the real world and the virtual world, and hopefully allow us to build stronger boundaries between them. But more than anything, Ingrid Goes West is just a great film, and one of the most surprisingly great films of the year.