The Columnist

Haters are gonna die.

They say, don't read the comments, and sadly, that's true. For every one positive comment, there has to be 10 negative ones written by some poor hack living in its parents' basement. I'm usually good at mocking them, but they do feed off that. I wouldn't want to meet them. Femke Boot would.

Meet The Columnist. Someone hated for her opinions online. Fortunately for her, unlucky for them, they all live within driving distance. And when the title character confronts her 1st hater in person...she gets a taste of it.

I rather liked this affair. It's not perfect and the lead performers (Mom, Boyfriend & Daughter) aren't very convincing, but I was intrigued enough to see where this led.

Worth a watch for anyone who gets hateful comments, but has no other outlet to digest them. HINT: either delete the comments, or laugh at that person...or bot.

***

Final Thoughts: This was in Dutch, but I would LOVE to see an American, independent remake of this. No studio interference and someone in the lead who can play that Serial Mom dual role perfectly. I suggest Laura Linney. I totally can see her losing it on screen while improving as she's becoming the beast she is.

Loved this movie 👍

Helps that Katja Herbers is awesome and sounds even sexier speaking Dutch than she does in English but that's not the only reason to watch this movie.

We all live in a world of 24/7 Social Media with people hiding behind hateful comments and it is fascinating to see her character reach the end of her tether and then just step past.

Seriously, who hasn't wanted to hunt down some internet trolls. I'm not saying you should actually do it, but I'm sure the fantasy of at least scaring them has crossed all our minds at least once. The Columnist/De Kuthoer is one of those movies where you quickly end up cheering for the killer because these people aren't just trolls that poke some fun; no they are saying they know where she lives and they are threatening her and being extra awful. We quickly see how the addiction to social media does so much harm, but also how Femke seems to now be addicted to killing. The character development in this is wonderful. We see so many sides of Femke, the harm this addiction does to her, her boyfriend and her daughter; who is inspired by her mom and trying to speak out against issues regarding freedom of speech. There's a lot of irony in this with Femke silencing people for their words while also saying she supports free speech. Femke mostly writes a pretty neutral column, but she does end up getting a lot of hate because she is anti-Zwarte Piet/Black Pete. She's also under stress of deadlines from her publisher for a book she's writing. It seems the killing helps her with her writing though, so I guess that's good for her and sucks for the trolls?

It's very easy to interact with people you don't know on the internet; and it's very easy to be very mean to people you don't know. But might it also not be easy to take revenge on them? This is the central idea of Dutch comedy-thriller 'The Columnist', which keeps a mostly straight face even as its plot turns farcical. The central character is well-constructed, and there is a serious point about the toxic nature of social media. 'The Columnist' never quite reaches the peak of 'Black Mirror', but it's nicely paced and might just make you think twice about the difference between how you behave online and in real life.

She did not hold a sex slave in the basement (and many other thing). But she did become a terrible person just like those trash-critic saying on Internet.

In the end, this movie is not about some regular and easy issue. It's about how fail we alway are as being a human.