Ingrid (Aubrey Plaza) and Taylor (Elizabeth Olsen) in Ingrid Goes West.
In this sharp satire of millennial isolation by writers David Branson Smith and Matt Spicer, comedian Aubrey Plaza (Parks and Recreation) delivers a bravely dark performance as a social-media addict turned stalker. With a small inheritance from her mother, the bereaved Ingrid moves to Los Angeles to pursue the seductive Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen), an Instagram star who appears to have the perfect boyfriend, perfect dog and perfect hat. Much to an audience's discomfort, Ingrid's desperation to bond with the phony Taylor soon breaks the bounds of sanity – until the film rebukes her warped world view with a highly moral ending. The critique is clever but the limit is the one so common in satire: it's hard to care about the fate of a character this exaggerated.
Kate Taylor