Director: Matt Spicer
Actors: Aubrey Plaza, Elizabeth Olsen

This is a film that shows how things can go from bad to worse when you are not being authentic about yourself, when you try to be like someone else and when you try too hard to make that someone else like you.

Ingrid is a young girl attracted to the life of social media influencers. She keeps following their posts and also stalking them in person, trying to emulate them and become famous like them. Being jealous of one influencer, she sprays pepper in her eyes on her wedding day, for which she is sent to a facility for psychological treatment.

Once she comes back from the recovery, she is attracted to another influencer Taylor who lives in Los Angeles. Ingrid gets a huge sum of money in inheritance from her mother and uses that to shift to LA near Taylor. In order to get acquainted with Taylor, she even kidnaps her pet dog and pretends to find it and return it to her to become friends.

Being obsessed with Taylor, Ingrid goes to great lengths to develop closer friendship with Taylor and be a part of her society and circle. She reads the same books, uses the same cosmetics as Taylor and even accidently lands up in the same parties as Taylor.

Taylor’s brother Nikki finds Ingrid’s actions very suspicious and discovers that she is even using Taylor’s birthday as her phone’s password. When Nikki tries to blackmail Ingrid to stay away from Taylor, Ingrid tries to scare Nikki with the help of her boyfriend Dan, who she was forced to make her boyfriend when Taylor insisted on bringing him, but ended up almost killing Nikki.

Eventually, her cover is blown and although she tries hard to win back the friendship of Taylor, she realizes it is all over. Left with no choice, she records a video for the social media before consuming sleeping pills.

Luckily Dan sees the post and calls 911. While recovering in the hospital, Dan tells Ingrid that her post went viral and she herself has become a social media celebrity for being authentic about herself. She even got her own hashtag. That brings a smile on Ingrid’s face. 

Being Authentic

I doubt there is anyone who has not been rubbed off by the pernicious influence of social media. Continuously browsing social media sinks us deeper into our darker selves. Various emotions, mostly negative, are sub-consciously evoked without our being aware of them. And then our actions are provoked by those emotions and we don’t understand why we become irritable or angry when nothing in our surroundings gives us any reason to be so.

Watching posts on social media makes us feel that the whole world is having fun and everyone is so damn successful while I alone am a loser. If I am not aware of this phenomena, then I am sucked into it. I need to show to others I am also having fun and I am also someone who can get likes and appreciation. So I will post content just for the sake of getting likes and then will keep an eye on how many likes I got and who liked it and who commented on the post. It becomes an addiction very soon.

If you happen to fall in love with a person and their social media posts, it could get ugly. At this moment, we can say that it is not just about social media. Many people go to great lengths to be like the film actors they idolize. They will wear the same kind of clothes, eat the same food, copy their mannerisms and way of walking and speaking. They start living a false life. They don’t be themselves but pretend to be like their idol.

Living a false life is always unsatisfactory. You need constant stimulation. If you don’t see that person for a day, you will start to get withdrawal symptoms. If you are used to getting a response to your post within seconds, then you will be agitated if you don’t get a reply within the first few minutes.

Ingrid was lucky that Taylor discovered her pretense and she was brave enough to admit it. Committing suicide is not the option but dying to the false self is surely the right way. It takes tremendous courage to face oneself as one is with all the inner ugliness. Aubrey Plaza is simply superb as Ingrid.

I haven’t been living a glamorous life in LA… I’m just a loser. I’m pathetic… I know there’s something wrong with me but I don’t know how to fix it and I don’t know how to change and I just don’t think I can change. So maybe I’m just maybe this is just who I am and maybe I’m just tired of trying to make people like me and I’m tired of pretending like I’m someone I’m not and I’m tired of being alone and I’m just tired of being me. So I just I feel like if you don’t have anyone to share anything with them what’s the point of living. Yeah so I guess I’m just making this video just so you guys can see the real me at last.

My Journey to Being Authentic

There was a time early in my career where I completed the Johari Window exercise. It came as a shock to me to get some feedback that I was not expecting. I was always pretending to be a good person and when it became clear that others were seeing through to the real me, I felt very ashamed of myself. At first, I denied the feedback, saying it was all a conspiracy to blame me. But in moments of self-reflection, I knew who I was in reality. All my efforts to keep pretending to be a good person and making others like me was futile. I could relate very much to what Ingrid was going through.

In the normal course of life, we are always pretending to be someone, to be good enough, to be capable, to be competent. That is an image we create for ourselves. And then we do everything possible to protect it. We can go to any lengths to prevent people finding out our real selves, which we believe is bad deep within.

There is a lot to gain in terms of one’s spiritual growth if one gathers the courage to face one’s real self someday.