User reviews

Dark comedy with Aubrey Plaza and Elizabeth Olsen? Sign me in.

But what I got, was definitely not a comedy. There are some laughs in this film, but mostly it's a heavy drama about unbalanced, desperate people. And a very well made one.

'Ingrid Goes West' is so real, so brutal, that it makes the audience uncomfortable, but you still can't look away. This is what the world of social media is when taken to extreme. It's reality for thousands of people, if not for millions.

Sad, yet important and powerful, look at our society today.

The plot line and comedy/drama categorisation do not reveal much when it comes to this film. It is a good thing since it offers more than you would hope for. I would say it is more of a drama than a comedy, there are some quite serious issues covered in this story.

Aubrey Plaza is great as Ingrid, she managed to find a nice balance between being unhinged, vulnerable, obsessed and yet her familiar facial expressions will sometimes still make you laugh.

I believe that the obsession with social media was portrayed nicely here, I am sure you all know or knew someone who is practically glued to their phone and can't imagine lasting a day without it. Instagram, Facebook and other media can really make a person feel a bit depressed since everyone seems happy all the time, they eat at nice restaurants, travel to nice places, go to great parties where in reality it is all a bit phony which is another thing that this film shows. There are not many people who would post something sad because they are having a bad day or are going through a rough patch, the fear of being judged is always present and it would break the balance of everything being seemingly perfect with everyone. If you combine that with a troubled personality or a mental illness, the results can be pretty bad. And that basically describes Ingrid.

It is a solid indie film with good performances and something to think about.

I wonder at some of the savage reviews this film got on IMDb. It is no candidate for an Oscar but it is a pretty adequate description of the social media scene, has a reasonably ingenious script and is well acted. I describe it as a semi-black comedy because, very appropriately in an environment where nothing es what it appears to be, it is funny but not totally funny, a little tragic but not as much as it could be. Worth spending a while looking at it.

Ingrid Goes West is a pleasant surprise of a comedy movie, discussing obsessive personality in the social media-centric age we live in. Plaza's performance as the titular character is outstanding, with Jackson, Olsen, Russell giving great supporting roles that make their slice of Los Angeles feel extremely personal. To top off the experience, the cinematography is vibrant and the plot is a sweet balance between melancholic and hilarious. I recommend the movie to anyone looking for a unique comedy or commentary on social media.

This film's portrayal of obsession and social media taking over modern lives and interests is spot on, and overall it's thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish. Just know what you're getting in to!

Too many of the lower reviews are complaints that the film was too dark and not funny enough - this shouldn't reflect on the overall score. The writers had a point to make and they made it well while creating something that is entertaining even at it's saddest moments. It's a far more powerful movie than a lot of people seem to expect but that's not a bad thing. And don't even get me started on the people taking the comedy as some sort of twisted justification for the darker aspects, this film is not at all defending online obsessions or humouring the idea that online attention is important at all. It's simply shown to us from Ingrid's (well-established) sick mind.

If the premise interests you at all then it's a safe bet you'll enjoy the film, just don't expect a light afternoon comedy based on a dark concept, it is very much a miserably solid display of that dark concept with comedic aspects lining the fabric.

The main thing is that it's objectively a good movie: the acting is good, the movie looks like it was made for Instagram (obviously, the point), the issues raised here are very relevant nowadays. To sum it up, it is a good movie.

Still, I cannot say I will ever want to watch it again or that I enjoyed it that much in the first place. The reason for that (my incredibly subjective reason) is that there is nothing that revealing. The issues raised in the movie (loneliness, social media addiction, its shallowness, and the users' search for that shallowness and faux perfection) are all "right", they are all serious problems able to ruin lives or at least distort your view of life. However, most of us clearly understand it, and thus the plot was perfectly predictable because it's a mirror of the current situation in the world - how can it not be predictable?

Summing it up, despite all the highs of the movie, to me, it looked like a high schooler's moralistic essay: all the right thoughts, all the right intentions, but far from being as non-conformist or groundbreaking and revealing as the author believes.

Ingrid Goes West is a drama that focuses on a young woman who has recently lost her mother and becomes obsessed with filling the void she has left behind by finding a best friend trough stalking trendy bloggers on Instagram. This is the way she discovers Taylor, one of these trendy bloggers, who is situated in LA. In pursuit of what she believes will make her happy, Ingrid goes to California to find Taylor and befriend her, only to find out that this Instagram celebrity's life is basically one big lie.

Even though the message of the movie is a powerful and important one, highlighting that the age of being who ever you want to be is literally here because an impressive Instagram feed can fool everyone into thinking you live the perfect life, it still feels like it has been said so many times before. I couldn't help but be bored at certain points, because by the time Ingrid has befriended Taylor you basically know what will happen, it was just too predictable for my taste.

I want to point out that something being incorporated in films many times before is absolutely not a bad thing, and the philosophy behind the dark side of social media craze is a very interesting topic, but if it's done it needs to be done right and bring a fresh perspective, something I feel this movie just could not deliver on.

I will give it points for good acting and a good script, but other than that there is not much more worth giving credits for.

An American black comedy drama; A story about a woman craving recognition who becomes obsessed with using social media, which leads to her inserting herself into the life of an unsuspecting influencer. This satirical stalker fantasy strikes a fine balance between topical humour and horror, emboldened by timely social observations. It also has an interesting visual style which is used to good effect. It is well acted and clever in its depiction of neediness and self-obsession but it falls short in its timidity to take on the bigger psychological problem of the character which is evident in the way the film concludes.

So I've just seen this movie and I can say that it is somehow disturbing and I had an unpleasant feeling during the movie. This is an actual issue these days. I think that the final point of the movie was that it's actually all about that one person that loves you (and in this case: saves you). Important movie. Something has to be done because technology is taking over and it's just not worth it.

As someone who hates social media this movie really expresses all of my reasons. The biggest one being that everything on social media is fake. It's all manufactured to give an image that someone wants everyone else to see. I can not stand it and I'm glad someone made a movie about it. The girl in this movie is pathetic but so is everyone in this movie.

So I thought the movie was great in that sense and really thought it was saying something important until the last 3 minutes. They had an opportunity to make a huge statement and blew it with the last scene. It was a very shallow ending and they could have just left that last bit off and I would have thought a lot better of this movie.

All in all I'd call it a failed attempt to say something big.

If there was ever a character on-point to be portrayed by Aubrey Plaza, Ingrid Goes West is the perfect choice. In this 2017 sleeper, Matt Spicer puts on screen a dark comedy, almost a satire of sorts, that showcases social media's adverse effects on societal tendencies, such as the need for comparison & feelings of perpetual inadequacy & loneliness. With these absolutely relevant themes that ushers sensible episodes of obsession, Spicer needed an Ingrid that can carry the comedy, and convey a disarming, terrifying presence when the craziness breaks loose. Aubrey Plaza dons this demanding central role flawlessly, alternating drawing discomforting, loathing responses & sympathy, whenever needed. As for the picture's FAR FROM BLAMELESS victim that serves as prototype of social media's perceived elite, Spicer banks on Elizabeth Olsen's superb performance. Here, Olsen personifies this boho-free-spirited consumer of IG's lack of boundaries, present a version of yourself product, easily becoming Ingrid's object of crazed desire. Between the addicting chemistry of these wannabe-heroes and anti-villains, Spicer's deeper insights on our worst tendencies towards social media, surfaces; one rooted from saddening fakery. Damn.

In case not clear, Ingrid Goes West deserves a watch, as it exposes society's sorry state of reverence for social media's falsities. In amazing fashion, Spicer presents this commentary in the most entertaining & satisfying of ways, thanks to stellar casting and an ever-amusing script.

PS. O'Shea Jackson Jr., Billy Magnussen & Wyatt Russell deserve praise as well, accounting for the picture's levity and normalcy. In other words, theirs were worthy recipients of the central characters' narcissism & instability.

While this movie might end up looking obsolete in a few years depending on where technology goes, sociologically, it's damn on point and prescient. Not so much funny as dark and disturbing, it did a good job of showing how empty everyone was, even the so-called "heroes." The ending was a nice touch as well.

This movie is darker than the glossy trailers and posters depict. It's a very real look at what can happen in a social media obsessed generation, already struggling with a host of mental issues that no one talks about .

Also Elizabeth Olsen ! Such a delight to watch always .

This is another one of those movies that forgets to make you empathize with any of its characters. A movie which really wants to be a social commentary (and is successful at that) but isn't enjoyable in any way. It's not really funny, it's not cringey-funny but it's not really tragic either because, again, you don't empathize with the main character. It's mostly just sad and pathetic.

You're basically watching the main character slide deeper and deeper into her self-created mess and cringing or shaking your head every 10 seconds. She has no redeeming qualities at all except that she's Aubrey Plaza and you might be fascinated by her intentionally cringey performance.

Sounds like I should be giving 1 star but it's actually an otherwise well-made movie that does make you want to continue watching just to see how bad it gets for the main character.

There is a LOT of weird hate in these reviews for very strange things that kinda aren't even aspects of the movie? Nothing about the shots or scenes appears particularly "cheap" or "cringe", despite what some have said - it looks the same as any other current movie. The bad reviews stink of violated expectations and not much else. You were hoping for some more Parks & Rec or something? This just happens to be a really dark movie about mental illness and isn't maybe as quirky and cutesy as a lot of people were hoping. But review the thing for what it is, not what you were expecting it to be based on seeing one actor's face on the cover. The whole thing was actually really believable and wasn't afraid to get dark and uncomfortable in order to actualize. I was ill-at-ease the whole time, too, but, ah, it's about an unpredictable stalker, so it's kinda supposed to make you feel that way. Not perfect by any means, but I quite admire how dark and honest it is.

"Ingrid Goes West" is a devilishly dark comedy about how the quest for social media fame can be taken to monstrous extremes.

Aubrey Plaza plays Ingrid, an emotionally unwell young woman who is struggling to recover from the death of her mother. Painfully lonely and friendless, she insinuates herself into the lives of people she admires via social media and then proceeds to freak them out when she becomes too possessive. As the movie begins, she's done this at least once already, and the rest of the movie shows us Ingrid going about doing it again, uprooting her life and moving to Los Angeles so that she can stalk her favorite Instagram friend.

The tragedy of the film is that, of course, Ingrid can be genuinely likable. She uses duplicitous and creepy means to establish a relationship with said Instagram friend (played by Elisabeth Olsen), but once she has it's the strength of her personality and the fact that she's a genuinely fun person that keeps the friendship going. But a casual friendship isn't good enough for Ingrid. In the world of social media, where everything must be the best. thing. ever., she wants to be Olsen's best, only, and truest friend, and it's her obsessive fixation that eventually does her and her friendship in.

"Ingrid Goes West" takes things a little too far in its efforts to be satiric, and it goes slightly off the rails by the time it's done. But I really liked how this film captured the relationship certain people have with social media. If Ingrid were to put half the effort into sorting out her actual life as she does into manufacturing a fake one, she might go a long way to improving her lot.

If nothing else, "Ingrid Goes West" is certainly a movie for our times.

Grade: A-

So close … so close.

As an edgy, black comedy about a sympathetic but unbalanced internet stalker, "Ingrid Goes West" has all the pieces in place for cinematic gold. And for most of the duration, it gets it right. Aubrey Plaza as the mousy, cute yet conniving and vindictive Ingrid, is a character handful, morphing her desperate, klutzy loner self into a confident socialite.

Tricking an internet personality into a fabricated friendship, Ingrid's lies pile up quickly, and we know this can't end well. And though her methods are immoral, Ingrid is easy to cheer for as the outcast in search of acceptance. Using Social Media as a friendship platform is a brilliant stroke: it's all based on likes and follows and emojis. So what exactly is a friend these days? And who is real? "Ingrid Goes West" asks some very pertinent and timely questions.

Clever, but incomplete. Or at least a film that kinda loses it's way at the end, as the fibbing train derails, things turn dark, and when a killer ending is needed, a kind of sappy conclusion is inserted instead.

Oh well, still a pretty damn good film for the most part.