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Tori (Taylor Joree Scorse) pretty much lives for the internet, her
YouTube channel has become so successful that she has every right to call
herself an influencer, and it also makes her enough money to not only be
able to live in a nice house in LA, but also employ a producer,
Christopher (Zach Paul Brown) and a personal assistant, Sarah (Chandler
Young). And she's so consumed by her social media personality that it more
and more supresses the real she. But of late, both her personal life and
her channel have taken some hits, for one has she broken up with her long
time boyfriend Ryan (Andrew Rogers), a favourite with her fans, and he has
since started his own channel, then there's rival social media star Becca
(Ava Westcott) who invites her to an interview on her show - to
mercilessly take her apart. And then there's also the fact that she might
be terminally ill. Amidst all of this and dwindling viewership she decides
to change her career trajectory and do what she always wanted to, record
some music. But not only does Christopher bail ship upon this, also her
first single doesn't sit well with fans as it's not the kind of bubblegum
pop one would associate with her online personality. Tori tries to steer
the trip into the right direction again by oranizing an online Q&A
with her fans, but that ends in total disaster that might just sink her
for good. But then she meets a tall and handsome stranger (Spencer Vaughn
Kelly) ... Now ok, I won't lie, the ending of Under the
Influencer is a bit cheesy, as exactly when it tries to give the movie
some depth it comes up with the most formulaic of twists and really falls
rather flat - which is a bit of a pity, but that said as a whole the
film's till a pretty biting satire, on that takes aim and hits hard, at
times even under the belt, at social media fame and all the fakeness that
comes with it. And Taylor Joree Scorse gives a strong performance
successfully treading the line between the two personalities living in her
character and really carries the film, while the direction, shifting
effortlessly between realism and Tori's stylized world keeps things
visually interesting throughout, making this into a very entertaining
film.
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