IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB () review
Los Angeles Times (J. Yamato) review
RogerEbert.com (S. O'Malley) review
AVClub (K. Rife) review
Ingrid Goes West [2017] (directed and screenplay cowritten by Matt Spicer along with David Branson Smith) is a cutting but wildly entertaining (in a feel-sorry-for sort of way) late-teen-to-early-20s-young-adult-oriented dramedy about Ingrid (played wonderfully / almost always convincingly by Aubrey Plaza) a young late-teen / early 20s "loser-ish" woman from the Midwest with "some issues."
SOME issues?? Okay, she had no real friends, was addicted to Instagram and had clearly become a Stalker. But part of the film's charm (and arguably _its point_) is that while she's clearly "gone off the edge," she's clearly _not that far_ from said "edge" and the various "cool" / "have it together" people that she so admires are not necessarily that far from said "edge" either.
It's just that, once one "goes over the edge," all that there is ... is AIR ... and a long, inevitable (and painful) FALL down. So going "over the edge" does have ... CONSEQUENCES even if those of us who haven't _yet_ "gone over the edge" ought to not be THAT PROUD because ... we could be close to said "edge" ourselves.
Very well... we meet Ingrid as she crashes the #Blessed #Perfect wedding of ... some girl she barely knows (but is a friend of on Instagram), spraying her with mace because ... she wan't invited to said #Blessed #Perfect wedding. That lands her, well, in a local psychiatric institution ... for a few months.
When she gets released, she goes back to the empty home that her mother left her (mom died sometime back ... yes, Ingrid does have a story too ...) and after an afternoon long binge on Instagram finds a new Insta-lebrity, a Taylor Sloane (played with wonderful #Blessed ditziness by Elizabeth Olsen) who Ingrid decides she's now going to FIND and ... _model her life_ around.
Taylor lives in Venice Beach, CA, Ingrid's somewhere in the snow-bound Midwest. No problem. Ingrid goes to the bank, _cashes_ her inheritance (about $65,000) left her by her mother (stuffs said bills into a school backpack and ... heads California-way.
And thanks to Instagram ... she soon finds Taylor. Okay, she kidnaps Taylor's dog (in order to "rescue it" for her) and ... with $65,000 ... that can make for a pretty pleasant life ... for a while.
Sigh, it's hard to say that Ingrid was evil.
All she wanted to do was to be Taylor's BFF. And she _kinda does_ until ... Taylor gets introduced by Taylor's _psycho_ / sociopath brother Nicky (played wonderfully in mob-style user fashion by Billy Magnussen ... seriously, he "gets by" by befriending and then "knife to throat" extorting rich young people) to a model named Harley Chung (played again in even more #Blessed ditzy fashion by Pom Klementieff) who now TAYLOR would like to imitate ;-)
Poor Ingrid ... all she ever wanted to do is to be #liked by someone as popular and wonderful as Taylor and ... Taylor now wants to be #liked by someone else.
Much ensues ...
Again, Ingrid is #psycho. But to say that she was _hugely_ more #psycho than most of the people that she wanted to be around and admired would not be fair.
It all makes for one funny / sad cautionary tale of our times.
Honestly, quite great job!
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