Not Okay
Directed by Quinn Shephard
★★★
Danni (Zoey Deutch) and Colin (Dylan O'Brien), shown. (Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures) - Episodic Stills
The steady and somewhat endless recent barrage of self-aware, woke gen z/young millennial-centric films tackling the social media age with a satirical bite is starting to feel out-of-touch, especially when its writers don’t come from the generation they are criticizing. So, while Quinn Shepard’s film Not Okay is a bit of a mess, it takes a lot of swings that pay off.
Placed solidly in the center of the film is Zoey Deutch’s, Danni Sanders. Danni is in her late twenties and is an aspiring writer, who works as a photo editor at a trendy website (think Buzzfeed or Huffpost). We meet her in her sort of drab life, and soon find out she has delusions of grandeur. Not only does Danni continually lie to those around her to make herself look better, but she lies to herself too. Until she spins a web of lies so big, that even the best politician couldn’t find their way out of it.
The film is opaque in its skewering of wannabe influencers. The way that Danni spins her perceived persona to be that of someone of influence and happiness is an obvious mirroring of the way we paste our glossy shots and glamorously over-edited photos to our Instagram pages to make us feel better about how mediocre our lives really are. What Sheppard does is not nearly anything new and is extremely commonplace in today's cinema landscape. However, she chooses to hold Danni accountable for her actions, rather than letting her off the hook with a simple apology like most writers do, afraid to portray an unlikeable (especially if female) protagonist. Yet, from the trailer Shepard already lets us know through a disclaimer that we have an unlikeable female protagonist on our hands, and throughout the film, she mostly sticks to her guns.
Though it's hard to despise the always charismatic Zoey Deutch, she continually makes mistake after mistake, yet seems as real of a person as she can, given the exaggerated material. Dylan O'Brien is also a scene stealer as a hubris-filled fuck boy.
Overall, the film plays it somewhat safe, despite the way it ends. It undercuts its wit with jokes that lean a little more John Hughes than satirical and don’t quite fit. But despite the mess, it mostly gets tidied up by a strong cast and daring ending.
