Neil Welch After Ingrid Thorburn crashes a wedding and creates an ugly scene, she spends some time in a facility on medication. On her release she uses her inheritance from her recently deceased mother to relocate to California where she cyberstalks minor Instagram celebrity Taylor Sloane. She steals Taylor's dog in order to gain an introduction by having "found it" - she has modelled herself by reference to Taylor's postings by now. Her obsession grows up to the point where Taylor's brother may have found her out.The trailer gives the impression that this is a comedy. There are some amusing moments, but this is more disturbing than funny.On one level, this is a salutary comment on the inadvisability of living your life via social media, the artificiality of online personae, and the shallowness and glibness of online status updates. The fashion for posting photographs of your meals, "profound" epigrams, social climbing via status - all are targeted in passing.On another level, though, this is a portrait of a very disturbed, and disturbing young woman. She is someone who is unable to live her life other than by reference to someone else, is in denial about that fact, and doesn't understand why she is doing it anyway.I like Aubrey Plaza who plays Ingrid, and produced this film. Her previous comedic work gives little indication of her ability to play a character like Ingrid: repellent, attractive, just a little bit off in her interactions with the world, and terribly, terribly sad. She is terrific in this. Elizabeth Olsen plays the rather thankless part of Taylor, superficially nice and attractive, but actually shallow, selfish and insensitive and, ultimately, a good deal less likeable than Ingrid.The only character who comes out really sympathetically is Ingrid's landlord Dan (O'Shea Jackson Jr) who, apart from an unusual (but, in my view, wholly understandable) preoccupation with Batman, is a genuinely nice person.Based on the trailer, I expected to like this as it was going along rather more than I did. However, it left a far greater impression on me than I expected.

jtindahouse 'Ingrid Goes West' is like a train wreck happening before your eyes. It's tough to watch, but you can't look away. It's not tough in the sense that it's a bad movie (it's actually a surprisingly good movie), it's tough to watch in the sense that this character ('Ingrid') is so damaged, confused and broken that it is nothing short of heart-breaking. As she is even told at one point in the movie she needs professional help. The line drawn between comedy and drama is a fine one here. To me this is almost entirely a drama, with only the odd speck of humour thrown in the mix. Having said that if someone told me they found this a very funny and even light-hearted movie I could understand that perspective as well. I think it works best as a very dark drama though. A character study of someone who is not right in the mind.I thoroughly enjoyed the performance of O'Shea Jackson Jr. in the film. His character (a Batman lover, much like myself) brought some real and genuine charm to the film. His character perfectly balanced things out for 'Ingrid' and gave her character hope of a better "normal" life. As an audience member it was important to have him there. If she was entirely on her own I think it would be too bleak to bear. For me 'Ingrid Goes West' was a tough watch, but a worthy one nonetheless. I'm glad I saw it, but I don't think I ever want to watch it again.

Matt Greene Social media induced anxiety & mental instability manifest in the littlest ways before leading to full on insanity. Plaza plays a troubled, unsettling young woman completely possessed by Instagram personalities, both her own & others'. Her unhinged, unraveling turn anchors the film's onslaught of oddly entertaining douche chills. For people concerned about the emotional impact of ubiquitous social media, or anyone who wants to hate-watch some awful millennials, this compelling flick will do the trick.

hebbiz If you are looking for a comedy for a beer&popcorn evening, look somewhere else.This movie is a modern drama, which catches you in uneasy feeling from the very beginning and continues to do so until the final scene. Sometimes it is fun, but mostly the humor leaves you with the feeling of incompleteness. The plot is very straight-line and gives no food for thought apart from the main idea of the movie - how destructive social media might be for one's ego. The motto of the film is "be yourself", however the presentation of this idea is very weak in my humble opinion.