I'm old enough that I didn't grow up with computers until I was late in education, but not so old that I don't benefit from the huge leaps forward in technology. I'm glad of this because I think if online games had been around when I was in school then certainly I would have been lost into them; and I'm also glad to have worked out social skills without the involvement of social networks - real life is enough of a game without apps actually gamifying it more. Against this background, I found this short film to be engaging, lively, yet chillingly real in what it does.
For the majority of the film it is about a young woman trying to work out relationships in a modern age, and to be outside of the online life represented by her selfie-obsessed friend. The final third of the film sees a moment in her life go viral and be misconstrued - becoming an internet talking point, and focus of hate and online bile. From reading about the film, it is this final third that is the main part of the description, so it is strange that it is the lesser part of the running time. However, the first sections work well to establish the world, and show the absurdity of it, before launching into the darkness of it (and of course ending up with the hacker known as 4Chan). The film gets this mix right, because on one hand it is about the cruel trolling that occurs, but it doesn't differentiate from the fact that the rest of social media, 'likes', 'subs', 'swipes' and all the rest of it is any less absurd - or somehow not connected to the extremity of this one specific situation.
It is this connection that makes the film work so well, because it carries that entertaining humor, but balances it well with the darker reality. That it has a great performance from Trimbur at its core, only makes it stronger as a piece.
