Watchlist Warrior: Influencer

At the time of writing this, my watchlist on Letterboxd has 2,359 movies on it. The majority of these movies I do not recognize or remember adding. In a two-pronged assault on watcher’s indecision and writer’s block, I will be shuffling my watchlist and selecting a movie to watch and write about from the first row. The less popular, the better. Let’s plumb the depths. I will not cheat, and if I do cheat, I will not tell you. I am the Watchlist Warrior.

Happy Friday everybody. It’s as good a day as any to once again unsheathe my cursèd blade. Once drawn, it must be sated. With the blood of a movie…

Wow, for once I’m getting a movie that I actually remember adding to my watchlist. Though the title and poster may not seem like the type of thing I’d typically choose to watch, I’m very excited to check out Influencer. It comes from a team of filmmakers called Failureboys whose previous work really wowed me.

Their first movie (I think it was their first), Firefly, I’d consider to be an indie sci-fi masterpiece. It follows four characters after a mysterious incident on Halloween night, as their lives drift towards a confluence on Christmas Eve. I’m being really vague because I don’t want to give anything away. Firefly had me fully captivated in the first five minutes, and then floats forward with major indie Donnie Darko or Magnolia vibes toward an all-timer finale they clearly worked backward from. I really can’t recommend Firefly enough– it’s a bizarre and beautiful meditation on making sense of the struggles life throws at us, and the role of making movies in interpreting those struggles.

When the credits rolled on Firefly, I realized it was made by the same people who made the movie Attack of the Tattie-Bogle! Tattie-Bogle is a straightforward fourth-of-July-set slasher movie with a similar melancholy, otherworldly tone. It’s not a gorefest nor is it indebted to the type of horror aesthetic you’d expect from a movie in the slasher tradition. That’s what makes it so good. The kills really stand out because they’re, for lack of a better term, matter-of-fact. It has a “this is what happened” attitude that turns the customary slasher proceedings from a formality to a gut punch.

Based on those two movies, I’d consider Peter Marcy and his collaborators to be masters of tone. So, despite Influencer’s whole vibe kind of raising my hackles a little bit, I’m very excited to dive into this movie and see what they’ve got for me this time.

Influencer follows a pair of separated parents, Amber and Cameron, who make selfish choices that often come into conflict with the best interests of their daughter Haley.

Cameron is a geriatric nurse who shirks responsibility at every turn: he’s practically a deadbeat and he cuts out of work early to attempt to get his music career off the ground. After quitting his band in part because he feels unappreciated, he googles the search term “most popular video” (this got a good laugh from me) and finds a children’s song called Tickle Tiger, clearly a fictionalization of Baby Shark. He drunkenly records a snarky parody version making fun of how stupid and uninspired Tickle Tiger is. His video goes “viral” (he gets about a thousand subscribers) and his life becomes dedicated to figuring out how to leverage this online success into money and attention.

I found Cameron’s initial foray into the world of influencerism to be genuinely revolting, like watching a Komodo dragon swallow a goat: reptilian and mechanical. I worried that this would be the thrust of the movie and I wouldn’t be able to stomach it. But as Cameron spends more time with his daughter he begins to realize that while jeering negativity makes for easy engagement, it may not actually matter. It’s a sweet conclusion that of course feels pretty obvious, but it’s not really belabored to the point where it felt schmaltzy.

Parallel to this plotline, Amber receives a ticket for texting while driving with Haley in the backseat. After her boyfriend lightly berates her for not taking parenthood seriously, she packs up her things and leaves, entering self-imposed homelessness to make a point. Cameron is saddled with Haley for a short period. After hygiene complaints at work stemming from her lack of access to a shower, Amber lies to her boss Jerry, claiming she’s homeless because she escaped from an abusive living situation. Jerry is taken by this story and begins grooming Amber for a promotion. He also offers to let her stay at his house until she gets back on her feet. She accepts enthusiastically, brushing off the weird dynamic this creates.

A lot of the movie’s strength lies in how we watch Haley’s reactions and conclusions from the situations her parents put her in. The attitudes of her parents and the adults around her rub off on her in ways that are sometimes undesirable but often earnest and touching. We watch Haley try to make sense of her surroundings as they transition from living in a car to her absentee father’s spare room to her mom’s boss’s house. Through the lens of Haley’s genuine desire to spend time with her father, his candle-at-both-ends late-night cynicism becomes a point of imitation and connection. Haley’s innocent reflection of bad behavior lets her parents see themselves in her, leading them to make more of an effort and eventually at least somewhat correct those flaws in themselves.

In that way I think the title Influencer holds a very clever double meaning. The jumping-off point of the movie is Cameron receiving that first dose of online attention and making the snap decision to become an online ‘influencer’. But social media and the internet are not the true focal point here; Influencer is really about how a parent ‘influences’ their child. That probably comes off a bit trite but I think the movie is well-written enough and the actors are all talented enough that it really works.

Even that, though, may be too neat a thematic parcel to bundle everything up into. At the end of the day, Influencer is just a really engaging story with great characters. It’s very impressive how the movie takes selfish, unlikeable characters and has you rooting for them by the end. By the second half you’re able to see past the flaws in Amber and Cameron in a way that feels real and earned. They’re trying their best, even if their best is sometimes undignified or immoral.

The journey from beginning to end is a true pleasure and I was so thrilled to watch Influencer transcend its unappetizing title and poster. I had faith in this team, but it admittedly feels like a hard sell. Consider this a glowing recommendation. Influencer is a sweet family drama that puts well-rendered characters into interesting situations in a way that generates genuine pathos. That’s what movies are all about!

It seems like Peter Marcy and co. haven’t quite made a splash, and I think that’s a huge shame. I’m happy that my Letterboxd shuffle landed here and gave me a chance to evangelize. If not Influencer, you should absolutely check out Firefly. I look forward to whatever this crew does next.

Four stars!