“Influencer” (2023) has a double meaning. The title refers to successful social media influencer, Madison (Emily Tennant), who has a glamorous online lifestyle, but is miserable traveling without her boyfriend and promoter, Ryan (Rory J Saper), who did not accompany her to Thailand as promised. The title also could refer to fellow tourist C.W. (Cassandra Naud), who has a talent for getting travelers to change their itinerary and follow her lead. C.W. takes Madison under her wing to show her the sights outside of the luxurious resort until C.W.’s tour endangers Madison.
“Influencer” is a lush and gorgeous film, which will make the viewer want to jump into the screen and join the fun. Even if you are not ordinarily into thrillers, it starts as a travelogue before going full tilt into the genre. Director Kurtis David Harder makes a sleek and glossy film that will draw viewers into Madison and C.W.’s world. Harder’s work feels reminiscent of Michael “Manhunter” Mann’s early work meets Brian DePalma’s obsession with repeat examination of reality versus image. Harder and cowriter Tesh Guttikonda set up an irresistible premise: a young woman traveling alone could be in danger. The twist is the identity of the perpetrator and her inscrutable motivations.
“Influencer” is divided into three acts: the setup, the complication, and the denouement.
The first third of “Influencer” feels light with youthful exploration of the sights and a developing friendship between people with differing sensibilities, visual tropes of light and darkness, one person with the veneer of happiness but slipping into dissatisfaction with her chronically online existence versus one who lives in the moment with old fashioned tastes like film cameras instead of digital. It is solely devoted to Madison’s point-of-view. Movie lovers will spot the danger early—Madison is alone, has no family and is desperate for authentic connection. Is C.W. showing empathy or profiling/grooming her? At the end of this act, twenty-six minutes in, the credits finally roll!
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The second act devotes more time to showing C.W.’s calculating perspective as she scrambles to keep up with the shifting challenges that force her to improvise and stray from her ordinary modus operandi of ensnaring solo women travelers. Ryan is not the jaded, sleazy, exploitive, and minimizing boyfriend that he appears to be. When he stops hearing from Madison, he arrives at C.W.’s place looking for her and disrupts C.W.’s routine. The momentum stumbles a little as C.W. takes some time to recalibrate and try again. The filmmakers succeed at raising the stakes by creating layers of conflict. C.W.’s next prospective target is more confident and cautious than Madison, and Ryan is more devoted to Madison than his hedonistic business habits imply. The filmmakers deliver the vicarious thrill of watching C.W. hunt her unsuspecting prey, but also raise the possibility that these people can outsmart, outmaneuver, or overpower C.W. By the end of this act this hitherto fore bloodless hunt gets sanguine leading to the satisfying final act, which Ryan dominates in the beginning.
“Influencer” dares viewers to wonder how far C.W. will go to obey her compulsions, and if Ryan can stop her. The answer is disturbing and uncomfortable when in a delightful plot twist, it turns out that once again, appearances are deceiving. There is a poignant flashback of Madison before she became an international success and wanted the glamorous life. Instead of two-dimensional, vapid people, Madison and Ryan’s humanity, sweetness and innocence are highlighted, a trait invisible to C.W. I loved that for once, a movie delivered a guy that felt in danger and trusted his intuition, but I wish that the film had showed a trace of that guy in the first act. The final act has a couple of memorable confrontations and becomes a wistful, intimate mix of tragedy and triumph.
“Influencer” has underlying flaws that can be overlooked or even missed entirely. When it aims to critique internet culture, it goes right up to the line of moralizing in a regressive way about darn kids not living in the moment, the errors of cancel culture, #notallmen with the male characters being sad sacks and victims and the hidden dangers of having an online presence, but the moments do not last long and never get in the way of the fun. It does better when it pokes fun using the mercurial Jay (Justin Sams), Madison and Ryan’s fair-weather friend, as comedic relief who changes his allegiance in each act. It also worked that the online conversations felt as if the verbal responses never aligned.
Initially C.W.’s motivation appears to be funding her lavish lifestyle then the film explicitly rejects that explanation. “Influencer” implies that C.W. is picking her victims because they are what she is not: a popular online presence. She manipulates her victims’ followers and can destroy people online too. She enjoys shattering their false sense of security, identity and belonging. By the end of the film, there is a sense that C.W. had consoled herself by rationalizing how she is better than her victims and not allowing social media to seduce her while patting herself on the back for outwitting them. C.W. feels superior for choosing to malign that world. In the end, the film may be a subtle critique of social media haters for being what they despise: more superficially judgmental.
I love an inexplicable woman villain, and C.W. deserves to reach icon status. Naud may be competition for Aubrey Plaza since “Influencer” sticks to the bones and explores the shadiest corners in a way that “Ingrid Goes West” never has the courage to tread. C.W.’s motivation feels a tad bit underexplored. I’m choosing to ignore the film’s implication: an old-fashioned reason to pit women against each other. Who is the fairest of them all? C.W. is with the right technology, but she is not immune to feeling insecure about her identity. C.W. has a birthmark on her face, which is not an issue until Ryan arrives then her looks become a sorespot, and he touches a nerve when he asks her about her serious relationships. At this point, the film falls into the trope of beauty equals goodness. C.W.’s wound is her physical difference, and once people become openly disdainful of her, calling her “weird,” “creepy” or ridiculing her on Instagram, she gets triggered and becomes more violent. She is out for vengeance against the popular kids. I kind of love that she laughs when the tables finally get turned as if to say, “Fair. Well played.”
Is Madison going to get back to civilization? I also wondered if Madison would be able to locate the island again so she can explain why she has her dead boyfriend in a boat. If I was Madison, after that little fireside chat, I would not have slept a wink or slept in the boat. There were too many signs that C.W. was serious: the book, the tree carvings, and “You don’t meet people holed up in the jungle.”
The most uncomfortable scene in “Influencer” was when C.W. sexually assaults Ryan so she can delete incriminating evidence using his smartphone. Even though Ryan knows the score, it was obvious that Ryan never heard about “The Vanishing” (1988).
