When Frankie (Maya Hawke) first meets Link (Andrew Garfield), they're both nobodies, he's offering passers-by free cheese dressed up in a mouse costume, and she's a barmaid with dreams to one day become a successful YouTube filmmaker. She's immediately taken by his energy though, puts a video of his on YouTube, and within hours gets thousands of hits - to which he's ignorant because he doesn't do social media and doesn't even have a cellphone. However, she manages to track him down again, and a chemistry between the two of them develops almost immediately. She tries to persuade him to star in more of her videos, he tries to persuade her to quit her job - and both succeed ... and suddenly Frankie comes to the realization that she has to make this work as because out of a job running out of funds is only a matter of time. So she persuades her colleague from the bar, Jake (Nat Wolff), a gifted writer, to write material for them, material that really speaks to the audience and that also furthers Link's central message to get people off their cellphones and back into real life. Soon, their show attracts the attention of an agent, Mark (Jason Schwartzman), who organizes for them to have an internet gameshow, called Your Phone or Your Dignity, where Link, going by NoOne Special now, collects the cellphones of his contestants and asks them to either humiliate themselves on the show to get their respective phones back, or destroy them in front of the camera. The show's a smash hit at first, but the formula grows stale before long, so Link brings it up a notch to keep the audiences happy and shows a picture of his beautiful contestant Isabelle (Alexa Demie) with a very prominent birthmark in her face that she usually hides under makeup, and he pretty much forces her to post this on Instagram. Isabelle is devastated, but Frankie edits the show in a way that it feels like an act of empowerment of somebody showing her real self. Jake quits the show though, but Frankie, who of course has long fallen in love with Link, sticks with him. However, when Link later is interviewed on super-influencer Ted Wick's (Johnny Knoxville) show and unedited footage of the show is shown, the tables are pretty much turned on Link. And yet, he gets a big YouTube live special - on the very day that news breaks Isabelle has committed suicide ...

This movie seems to really click all the boxes for a quirky indie comedy: There are eccentric characters, media satire, quirky romance, obscure guest stars playing themselves, some YouTube-inspired and -compatible animation, campy bits, some thriller elements thrown in (that are never explored), and an uplifting ending that hammers home the message - and the result is ... just nice, nothing more. Basically the film tries to be edgy but is nowhere near edgy enough, as whatever originality or shock value Link's show is supposed to have has long been staple both of social and established media, and while Andrew Garfield sure is charming and has charisma, his turn as a game show host is weirdly reminiscent of fellow media satire Max Headroom - which beats this movie by some 35 years and still proves to be the much sharper satire. Meanwhile, the romance subplot really just follows the tried-and-true formula, really as if "indie" was a genre rather than a chance to shake off restraints. But I guess this sounds too negative, and this film really isn't that bad, it just really fails to captivate one.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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