Manipulation and Desperation
Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) when they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative.
“You see, you can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the same name)
Not Okay (Quinn Shephard) rated R 103 min.
Opening Chatter (no spoilers): Because COVID continues rearing its ugly head in my San Francisco area I continue seeking streaming options to report to you, a search not going too well last week until Friday when Tim Sika, a local radio/podcast critic, enthused over Not Okay which sounded interesting enough to watch (Hulu; came out July 29, 2022) although it shifts its focus from bitter satire about strategies of social-media-celebrity to just straight (angry) drama in a somewhat unsettling manner; that day I also noticed in the newspapers (yes, I still read paper versions; no iPads for me) that Showtime TV also had a couple of possibilities that night, but upon reading more about them I chose Infinite Storm, based on a true 2010 story of a rescue on a New Hampshire mountain during a bitter snowstorm. It didn’t prove to be quite as engaging as I’d hoped but probably was still a better choice than The Contractor (Tarik Saleh), yet-another-killing spree as a government hit-man (Chris Pine) then becomes an assassination target himself (debuted in theaters on April 1, 2022 [an auspicious release date!], found now on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, and others for a $5.99 rental if you’re interested but know it has even lower OCCU numbers than Infinite Storm). Overall, I’m hoping for better choices next week. In case none of this appeals to you (just as I don’t feel I missed much on the big screen by not seeing last weekend’s box-office champs, the Japanese anime Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero [Tetsuro Kodama]—although it was mostly a CCAL favorite—or Idris Elba confronting an angry African lion in Beast [Baltasar Kormákur]—a much-less-embraced CCAL response), here are links for the schedule of the cable network, Turner Classic Movies, which gives you a wide selection of older films with no commercial interruptions and the JustWatch site which offers you a wide selection of options for streaming rental or purchase. If you would like to see what reigned at the domestic (U.S.-Canada) box-office last weekend, just go here.
Here’s the trailer for Not Okay:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge it; activate
that same button or use the “esc” keyboard key to return to normal size.)
If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
What Happens: It begins as a satire of our ongoing-cultural-obsession with Internet fame as young woman Danni Sanders (Zoey Deutch) works as a photo editor at a NYC online magazine, Depravity, but has aspirations as a writer which she sees as her path to being a social-media sensation like her ego-driven co-worker/influencer Colin (Dylan O’Brien), who’s always in a cloud of marijuana smoke. Not only is her career going nowhere but she also has no friends (can’t get the LGBTQ group at work to let her come along on their bowling night) with even her mother (Embeth Davidtz) too busy to spend time with her. In a hastily-thought-out-attempt to impress Colin she says she’s going to a writers’ retreat in Paris, takes next week off from work, photoshops herself into pictures of Parisian landmarks, adds texts to imply she’s on site. Her ruse gains some attention (even from Colin), but then all hell breaks loose when a terrorist group bombs some Paris landmarks including the Arc de Triomphe just after she’s posted being there. To cover her lies, she says the bombing occurred immediately following her previous post, carries the ruse further by slipping in with a group coming back from France to meet her upset parents, Judith and Harold Sanders (Brennan Brown) at the airport—he cries a lot, seemingly in angst with everything going on in troubled-society.
With sympathy now pouring in from her co-workers (especially Colin) and her Internet presence jumping to absurd numbers she’s becoming the celebrity she always hoped to be when Depravity publishes her account of the “ordeal.” To further the life she’s now created for herself, Danni joins a trauma support group where she meets teenage Rowan Aldren (Mia Isaac), a survivor of a school shooting in North Carolina (her older sister died in the attack; her mother worked at the school, moved her surviving child to NYC) who’s trying to further raise public awareness of the need to prevent mass shootings in our gun-happy-society. Danni becomes quick friends with Rowan, ups the ante on her false trauma by declaring she’s “not okay,” which turns into a huge movement for her followers to announce they too are still suffering from whatever burdens them from within their pasts.
All of this leads to Danni attending a party with Colin where they have quick sex (no thrill for her), leading to her beginning to understand manufactured fame isn’t as satisfying as she assumed it would be, especially when she’s at a “We’ve Had Enough” rally with Rowan where counter-protesters set off fireworks traumatizing the girl who ends up in the hospital with PTSD, leading Danni to truly feel guilty about how she’s lied to her friend. Before Danni can do anything about backing off from her celebrity status, though, skeptical co-worker Harper (Nadia Alexander) confronts her with evidence about how her whole Paris situation was fabricated, threatening to reveal the truth if Danni doesn’t do it herself, upset Danni’s materially benefited from an event where people died. ⇒Danni confesses in an honest post, says she wants to be a better person, but that just leads to an avalanche of hater-responses, rejection from her co-workers, fired from her job, anger from Rowan, and the need to move in with her parents when her apartment address is published, making her fear physical harm (even death threats as we’ve seen in an opening montage with no explanation then as to why she’s being attacked so viciously) so she retreats, cancels all social media accounts. Later she’s in another support group, this one for victims of online shaming where she’s encouraged to make direct apologies to those individuals she’s hurt. She goes to a spoken-word-event where Rowan’s performing, prepared to approach her afterward, but, following Rowan’s harsh denunciation of what she endured from Danni (not clear she can see her former friend in the audience, but seems unlikely) and the crowd’s roaring approval, Danni simply leaves the event quickly as Not ... ends.⇐
So What? You’ll easily find Not Okay described as a satire on the superficiality of Internet social media, the manipulations people will go through to become cyberspace-celebrities/influencers, the lure of lying to maintain a soaring media presence, all of which is quite true about roughly the first 2/3s of this movie (with excellent acting throughout, especially by Deutch and Isaac, plus an energetic pace that holds your attention), but then the emphasis shifts to the interpersonal trauma between Danni and Rowan, which is just serious stuff on to the end of this narrative with little of the humor satire’s normally expected to contain (although we do get a bit of what came before when the cyber-sphere turns on Danni for her lies, showing how fast such a celebrity can fall when the winds begin to blow from another direction). Certainly, there’s nothing false about how devastated Rowan felt after learning Danni was no survivor of anything terrible (except her own life further falling apart, but due to her duplicitous actions, not as a victim of terrorists) nor is it inappropriate in a story such as this one to focus on how legitimate survivors of horrid events feel their lives are torn apart again when they see someone’s making material gains either by creating a false event for themselves or denigrating the pain others have legitimately suffered (a recent reality version of this second scenario is how a jury's awarded millions of compensatory damages to the parents of a slaughtered child from the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting as a result of right-wing-media-star Alex Jones perpetuating the lie for years this atrocious event never happened, then recanting but far too late after the ongoing additional suffering he caused families of the 20 children and 6 teachers killed in this massacre). Yet, for me, these were 2 related-but-not-resolved-narrative-approaches in Not Okay that somewhat trivializes the pain shown in Rowan (demonstrated so powerfully in her public spoken-word-presentation at the movie’s end) by having us laugh so much at Danni’s online-manipulations early on, then switching tone toward the conclusion. (It’s also a bit risky having Harper be a lesbian if audiences don’t catch her anger at Danni is because of her concern for the innocent victims of the Paris attacks, not due to any sort of gender-jealousy toward Danni’s success.)
Overall, there’s a lot to at first enjoy (in a smug sort of manner, especially for those of us who’d never consider or be able to be a media manipulator) in Danni’s successful absurdity, even when she takes it to the level of false-victimhood with her “I’m Not Okay” campaign, but then we have to wonder if the actual end of this story is intended to show remorse/apologies are never enough in manufactured-situations such as depicted here (in her blast at what happened with Danni, Rowan says she’ll “never be okay!”). Beyond these more weighty concerns, a minor interest to me is how this R-rated-movie from Searchlight Pictures, a branch of the former 20th Century Fox properties purchased by Disney, allows the new owners an outlet for more adult fare without having to push Disney or Marvel material into more-restrictive-audience-situations (just as Hulu’s owned by The Walt Disney Company, allowing more adult fare to bring in additional profits without compromising the reputation of Disney+) as many movie patrons likely have little idea Searchlight and 20th Century Studios are now Disney properties (since 2019), after formerly being within the Fox Film Corporation.
Bottom Line Final Comments: The CCAL’s considerably-more-supportive of Not Okay than anything else I considered reviewing for this week with Rotten Tomatoes critics giving it 74% positive reviews while the folks over at Metacritic offer “generally favorable reviews” due to their 62% average score (a supportive stance for them, based on their numbers which often don’t rise into the 70% range). This is purely a streaming venture on Hulu for no additional rental fee beyond the $6.99 monthly subscription so it wouldn’t even be as expensive—assuming you might be interested in such a story—as a matinee movie theater ticket, allowing you watch it then see anything else on their platform. (Including the delightful, Emmy-nominated comedy/mystery series Only Murders in the Building starring Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez; you could even binge seasons 1 and 2 [latter just concluded this week] before bailing out after that first month—or not, just consider it, though because Only Murders … is marvelous while you might find Not Okay to be even more interesting than I did.) My local East Bay Express’ Kelly Vance clearly feels Not Okay works well: “It’s a shame we do.n’t have more sharp-fanged communications-biz character studies like Quinn Shephard’s Not Okay. Too many would-be satires aim for easy political targets and end up ignoring the most despicable wrong-doings—for instance, social media. Writer-director Shephard’s takedown of online vanity bazaars follows the money and goes for the jugular in its story of a publicity-drunk fame seeker who gets in over her head and pays the price. As such, its investigation is hilarious until it’s pathetic.”—by which he means Danni’s experiences become “pathetic,” but not this movie itself.
One other aspect of Not Okay within its definitely-more-serious-ending-scenes is when Danni’s hitting rock-bottom after her truthful-revelation and the soundtrack gives us Juniore’s version of “The End of the World,” which I’ll pass on to you as my standard review-closure-Musical Metaphor at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXStrB5JEsE, certainly more contemporary than anything else I normally use, but I like it because it retains the melodrama of Skeeter Davis' 1962 original version—especially as she speaks lyrics already sung: “Why does my heart keep on beating? / Why do these eyes of mine cry? / Don’t they know it’s the end of the world? / It ended when you said goodbye”—while harking back to the misery Danni felt from the beginning of our story when she was an unknown nobody, then tapping into the new misery she later felt when her fame was taken away (she seemed to think her posted apology would help her retain those thousands of fans … never expect such loyalty from the anonymous, vicious masses). By the end of Not Okay we’re moved from satire into more sincerely-wounded-territory, so this song, late in the game as it’s used, helps me keep better connection to how I wish the entire film had gone with its initial sharp satire concept.
SHORT TAKES (spoilers also appear here)
Here’s a biopic about mountain-climber/rescuer/nurse Pam Bales (Naomi Watts) who went up New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington in autumn of 2010, started to turn back as she encountered a strong snowstorm but came across a man (“John”) seemingly up there ready to die in his grief until she insisted/somewhat-dragged him back down, with dangerous obstacles on the way, challenging them.
Here’s the trailer:
Before reading further, please refer to the plot spoilers warning detailed far above.
This excruciating-adventure-movie is based on an actual person, Pam Bales (played here by Naomi Watts), a nurse and member of the Pemigewasset Valley Rescue Team who helps hikers who have attempted to climb beyond their capabilities on New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington (6,288 ft., highest in the U.S. northeastern states, considerably lower than the 14K peaks in Colorado but still tall enough, especially in bad weather conditions which are frequent there, to be dangerous even for those who know it well) in the Presidential Range of the White Mountains (I’ve been to the southern 1/3 of NH but never realized there was something even this intimidating further north). On October 17, 2010 Pam headed up once again toward the top of Mt. Washington even though a fierce storm’s coming in from Canada, as she insists she has to because this day’s an important anniversary. (We find out later that a few years ago her 5- and 6-year-old daughters died because of a gas leak in their cabin, which she survived by sleeping on the couch with the window cracked, thinking the girls would be safe … they weren’t; given how much of this story on film seems to replicate the actual event I have to assume this tragedy really happened but I find no biographical info on Pam to verify it). What starts out as a pleasant enough hike soon turns miserable as the storm blows in (some say winds of up to 87 mph, 50 mph by others with even the latter being terrifying when you’re hiking up a steep, snow-covered trail [at least she wasn’t dealing with the highest gusts ever recorded up there, 231 mph]), along with no cell-phone-service and slipping into a deep-crevice which she has to struggle mightily to pull herself out of, so she turns back, only to see sneaker footprints in the snow which she follows to find a young man—who she’ll call “John” (Billy Howle) because he won’t give her a name—in shorts and an almost-catatonic-state, seemingly quite willing to die upon this ridge.
She insists he’s coming back down with her, puts some extra clothes on him she brought for safety’s sake, then goads him on the treacherous trek back down the mountain although at times he just flops down, says “I can’t,” but she’ll won’t take “no” for an answer. At one point she thinks she’s lost him anyway when they have to crawl across a log to traverse a river; he falls in, she’s heartbroken, but finds him downstream; they travel on despite wet clothes, encroaching darkness, his continued hesitancy to cooperate. ⇒Finally, they make it to the highway, then walk to the parking lot where both of their cars are, but rather than even attempting to thank her he just suddenly drives off. No one knows who he is, but soon afterward he sends a letter to her rescue group with thanks to her, praise for her organization. (In the movie, they somehow make direct contact, meet at a café where he tells about his despondency over his lover dying on that mountain a year ago, she tells him about her girls, but apparently that’s artistic license for our benefit, as they never met again in real life.)⇐
This movie’s script (by Josh Rollins) is based on Ty Gagne's article in the NH Union Leader from January 13, 2020, although actual Pam Bales didn’t participate in the filming process, nor was this shot in NH but rather in Slovenia for cost and efficiency purposes. My efficiency purposes for assigning a rating relate back to my review of Thirteen Lives (Ron Howard) from our August 10, 2022 posting where I went for 4 stars rather than the 3 I’m begrudgingly giving to Infinite Story even though they’re both rescue stories structured to keep your attention until the crisis is concluded. The difference for me, arbitrary as it may be, is based on what you do/don’t know going into the screening: if you’re aware of all the facts beforehand, it’s up to you if the filmmakers keep you invested in their presentations until running time’s done; however, if you’re not fully cognizant of the actual past with these rescue missions I think you could have more of your focus fully invested in Thirteen Lives because there are so many people overall involved in that crisis along with the edge-of-disaster-procedure to get these people out of a long, narrow, flooded cave where even some of the main rescuers expect there will be casualties whereas in Infinite Storm there are only 2 chief characters so why would any production company invest time, money, and the allure of a notable lead actor into a scenario where either of the mountain-stranded-people dies in this rescue attempt?
What’s presented is done well enough to keep you interested in how these trekkers might beat dropping temperatures, nightfall, potentially-deadly-terrain (Watts commanding the screen as she’s in every scene, just like Danni in Not Okay), but despite brief wonderings about how these desperate hikers will ever find their way successfully down from the upper realm of Mt. Washington (when you know they must have), the exercise on screen becomes one of just well-choreographed, well-shot renditions of a brave decision by Pam Bales, but it takes until the brief, final encounter with John for us to finally understand what each of them were inwardly battling on that extremely-difficult-day. The OCCU’s not overly-moved by this show of Pam’s bravery, though, with RT’s 54% positive reviews, MC’s almost-identical 56% average score; when released theatrically on March 25, 2022 it wasn’t overwhelming for audiences either, taking in a total of $1.6 million domestically and $1.64 worldwide.
Maybe my lack of ultimate enthusiasm for this movie is a product of my upbringing-environment (where hurricanes were always to be feared, but there wasn’t a mountain [or, usually, any snow] for hundreds of miles) as evidenced by this response from Dustin Chase of The Daily News from my old home territory of Galveston (TX) County who says: “What doesn’t work so well is the emaciated screenplay, holding a bit too much from the viewer. [… ¶] ‘Infinite Storm’ lacks real connective tissue between the documented elements of the rescue. While Szumowska’s documentary filmmaking approach aids the visual elements of the film, the lack of interest in adding more character development doesn’t do the film any favors.” His review comes from last March, but I just saw the movie on TV’s Showtime; if you’re interested (which you might be if this sort of hard-won-success intrigues you) and can’t find it otherwise there there’s always a 4K $3.99 streaming rental at VUDU, along with HD versions at Amazon Prime Video and others for $2.99. I’ll sign off these comments with a Musical Metaphor of “Landslide” (from the 1975 Fleetwood Mac album) at https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=WM7-PYtXtJM with the understanding this song’s about a woman who’s “been afraid of changing / “Cause I’ve built my life around you / But time makes you bolder, even children get older / And I’m getting older too,” yet I see symbolic connections to Pam as she begins to realize she needs to move beyond the sorrow of her lost girls, that she has skills her local world needs even if just on a person-to-person-basis while "John’s" pondering his lost love who might be whispering to him “And if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills / Well, the landslide will bring you down.” The real "John" admits in his letter that Pam’s determination to save him brought a change in his life for the better, which this movie might have the ability to do if seen by someone facing hopelessness, possibly finding some inspiration to move on in a journey less physically-demanding than coming down from a storm-encased-mountain (even though some journeys are ultimately doomed, as seen in the irony of this video as singer Stevie Nicks and guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, former lovers, have completely broken it off as she insisted he leave the band in 2018).
That’s all for my critical commentary this week, but whether you agree or not I’ll offer you one more opportunity to be in unity with an attitude that would benefit all of us, James Taylor’s "Shower the People" (on his 1976 In the Pocket album), because we should “Shower the people you love with love / Show them the way that you feel / Things are gonna be much better/ If you only will.” We’re now sailing through divisive times; it could be a smoother ride if we’d only help each other a bit more.
Other Cinema-Related Stuff: In quick fashion, here are some extra items you might like: (1) Will Netflix allow Knives Out sequel a major presence in theaters?; (2) Top Gun: Maverick now the 6th largest grosser in domestic box-office history; (3) Regal Cinemas may file for bankruptcy; (4) Why movies are here to stay; (5) Upcoming prequels, sequels, and spin-offs.
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
We encourage you to visit the Summary of Two Guys Reviews for our past posts.* Overall notations for this blog—including Internet formatting craziness beyond our control—may be found at our Two Guys in the Dark homepage. If you’d like to Like us on Facebook please visit our Facebook page. We appreciate your support whenever and however you can offer it!
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Here’s more information about Not Okay:
https://www.searchlightpictures.com/not-okay/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6AWRLH-nE0 (4:21 interview with actor Zoey Deutch)
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/not_okay
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/not-okay
Here’s more information about Infinite Storm:
https://www.infinitestorm.movie/ (click the 3 little lines in the upper left for more info)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-ol1Y7mzK4 (4:24 interview with co-director Malgorzata Szumowska) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBzdM_dnfzo (4:09 interview with
actor Naomi Watts [digresses into other topics, though])
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/infinite_storm
https://www.metacritic.com/movie/infinite-storm
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Here’s more information about your “Concise? What’s that?” Two Guys critic, Ken Burke:
If you’d rather contact Ken directly rather than leaving a comment here please use my email address of kenburke409@gmail.com—type it directly if the link doesn’t work. (But if you truly have too much time on your hands you might want to explore some even-longer-and-more-obtuse-than-my-film-reviews-academic-articles about various cinematic topics at my website, https://kenburke.academia.edu/, which could really give you something to talk to me about.)
If we did talk, though, you’d easily see how my early-70s-age informs my references, Musical Metaphors, etc. in these reviews because I’m clearly a guy of the later 20th century, not so much the contemporary world. I’ve come to accept my ongoing situation, though, realizing we all (if fate allows) keep getting older, we just have to embrace it, as Joni Mitchell did so well in "The Circle Game," offering sage advice even when she was quite young herself.
By the way, if you’re ever at The Hotel California knock on my door—but you know what the check-out policy is so be prepared to stay for awhile (quite an eternal while, in fact, but maybe while there you’ll get a chance to meet Eagles co-founder Glenn Frey, RIP). Ken
P.S. Just to show that I haven’t fully flushed Texas out of my system here’s an alternative destination for you, Home in a Texas Bar, with Gary P. Nunn and Jerry Jeff Walker (although, as you know, with bar songs there are plenty about people broken down by various tragic circumstances, with maybe the best of the bunch—calls itself “perfect”—being "You Never Even Called Me By My Name" written by Steve Goodman, sung by David Allen Coe). But wherever the rest of my body may be my heart’s always with my longtime-companion/lover/
wife, Nina Kindblad, so here’s our favorite shared song—Neil Young’s "Harvest Moon"—from the performance we saw at the Desert Trip concerts in Indio, CA on October 15, 2016 (as a full moon was rising over the venue) because “I’m still in love with you,” my dearest, a never-changing-reality even as the moon waxes/wanes over the months/years to come. But, just as we can be raunchy at times (in private of course) Neil and his backing band, Promise of the Real, on that same night also did a lengthy, fantastic version of "Cowgirl in the Sand" (19:06) which I’d also like to commit to this blog’s always-ending-tunes; I never get tired of listening to it, then and now (one of my idle dreams is to play guitar even half this well). But, while I’m at it, I’ll also include another of my top favorites, from the night before at Desert Trip, the Rolling Stones’ "Gimme Shelter" (Wow!), a song “just a shot away” in my memory (along with my memory of their great drummer, Charlie Watts, RIP). To finish this cluster of all-time-great-songs I’d like to have played at my wake (as far away from now as possible) here’s one Dylan didn’t play at Desert Trip but it’s great, much beloved by me and Nina: "Visions of Johnna." However, if the day does come when Nina has to recall these above thoughts (beginning with “If we did talk”) and this music after my demise I might as well make this into an arbitrary-Top 10 of songs that mattered to me by adding The Beatles’ "A Day in the Life,"
because that chaotic-orchestral-finale sounds like what the death experience may be like, and the Beach Boys’ "Fun Fun Fun," because these memories may have gotten morbid so I’d like to sign off with something more upbeat to remember me, the Galveston non-surfer-boy.
However, before I go (whether it’s just until next week or more permanently), let’s round these songs out to an even dozen with 2 more dedicated to Nina, the most wonderful woman ever for me. I’ll start with Dylan’s "Lay, Lady, Lay" (maybe a bit personal, but we had a strong connection right from the start) and finish with the most appropriate tune of all, The Beatles again, "In My Life," because whatever I may encounter in my time on Earth, “I love you more.”
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