Review of Ingrid Goes West (2017) by Adam M — 06 Sep 2018

Awe man. I really thought I was going to like this movie. Ingrid Goes West probably has some interesting things to say about mental illness in the digital era, but it's hard to care. The title character is so unrepentantly shitty, so unsympathetic, that not even Aubrey Plaza can make her likeable.

Plaza certainly does a great job with the material, but is unfortunately unable to elevate a script where the protagonist never changes. Ingrid is a terrible person at the beginning of the movie, and by the end she is forgiven for her actions by the only good character, and massively rewarded for being awful.

The final scene of the film is probably an attempt to comment on social media, but ends up feeling hollow when it allows the characters to remain so stagnant.