3. Ingrid Goes West (2017) Movie Review: Crazy People Are Not People, Too

At which point did everyone think they can make a character break bad and we'd just buy it? Not every movie can be American Psycho (as American Psycho 2: It's a Girl can attest) or Talented Mr. Ripley, which this movie wants to be. Look, I like Aubrey Plaza but I'm not gonna empathise with her stalking anyone other than me.

    Ingrid (Plaza) has a problem in that she's a crazy stalker. We meet her as she's macing her previous victim bride at the woman's wedding. Then she's out of the hospital and after Elizabeth Olsen, a victim she found on Instagram. We follow her efforts to find a friend through manipulation.

    At one point watching this, my partner said "well, they're all kind of bad people." Sure, valid to a point. Olsen plays a shallow person pretending to be fashion lady and her boyfriend just wants to drink and make bad art. There's a brother character that serves as a foil to Ingrid who is insufferable, yet I would argue for all their faults this people do not deserve the lies and violence Ingrid brings.

    She's a bad person, start to finish, and does little to redeem herself throughout the narrative. I might have even liked this more if it leaned into it and caused some mayhem and crazy violence or twisted and showed Plaza as some government project, a la The Guest*. What we get are vacant ideas of a displaced youth that I could care less about.

*That's me linking crazy Aubrey Plaza and crazy Dan Stevens. Watch Legion.