TMS Movie Review: Not Okay
(Searchlight Pictures / Hulu)
Quite a few movies in the past decade have tackled the topic of modern society in the age of social media; including THE essential film on the growth of the social media phenomenon: David Fincher’s The Social Network (2010). My favorite so far is Matt Spicer’s Ingrid Goes West (2017), which felt like a modern take on Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy (1983). This month, Hulu drops Quinn Shephard’s Not Okay for a brand new feature on influencer culture, that takes the theme of Steven Levenson’s 2015 musical ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ and puts it on a ditzy, shallow wannabe writer played by Zoey Deutch.
In modern day Manhattan, NY, Danni Sanders (Deutch) is a photo editor at a popular lifestyle website trying to convince her boss, Susan (Negin Farsad), she’s actually destined to be a columnist. One day while attempting to flirt with a popular stoner on Instagram named Colin (Dylan O’Brien), whom she’s attracted to, Danni fibs that she’s visiting Paris, France for an impressive writing seminar. After smoking a joint with Colin, Danni goes even further to fake the whole trip on her own social media pages with Photoshop and filters. But what starts as an attempt to improve her cred and popularity online and at work, soon turns into a global news story as a bombing happens on the street she claims to be staying at on her fake visit.
(Searchlight Pictures / Hulu)
Mia Isaac plays a teenage, public speaking social activist Danni befriends and Embeth Davidtz appears as Danni’s mother. Unlike previous movies centered around social media, Not Okay actually appears like it was written and directed by someone who grew up using apps and feeds, which is a big plus for its originality. Deutch is finally starting to reach her potential as a film lead, and O’Brien—also Deutch’s previous co-star in Graham Moore’s The Outfit from earlier this year—is perfectly cast as a pseudo-deep hip guy. Isaac delivers a very strong performance as a newcomer opposite some already established stars as well. Shephard aims for Not Okay to be both a satire on online relevancy and the performative nature of ‘woke’ internet celebs. I think the film succeeds more on the former than the latter, since I feel social/political commentaries in a lot of these type of comedies end up coming across too on-the-nose or heavy-handed. A few comedic gags are more lame than actually funny too. But considering Shephard is young and this is her second movie as a director, she clearly has enough time and skill to develop her craft.
Not Okay isn’t a home run, but it’s a nice jog around the field for movies fans looking for something to watch at the end of the day.