Unfriended
Director: Levan Gabriadze
In theaters
C
Despite its incredible simplicity, Unfriended is a tough film to review. Its characters are utterly vapid, hateful, spoiled, self-centered, despicable young people. But isn’t that its point?
The entirety of its story unfolds on the Mac laptop screen of high schooler Blaire (Shelley Hennig, Ouija), beginning with a conversation between her and her boyfriend, Mitch (Moses Jacob Storm), via webcam. (Were this section extended to feature-length, I’d be tempted to call it The Blaire Mitch Project.) Soon, they’re joined by three or four friends of varying superficiality, and the longest group Skype in cinema history begins. May its record never be shattered.
With Facebook, Gmail, iTunes, iMessage and Chatroulette serving as subplots, Unfriended keeps Blaire’s trackpad finger busy when an anonymous, unwanted icon gloms onto their call. Never heard, the presumed hacker claims to be Laura Barns (Heather Sossaman, 10.0 Earthquake), which would be NBD except the girl died the year before. In fact, she committed suicide on school grounds after a video of her drunk to the point of soiling herself earned her instant YouTube infamy … and a barrage of cyberbullying.
Now Laura wants revenge on those responsible. #andthentherewerenone
How could a dead student possibly wreak online havoc? Simple: Unfriended comes from Jason Blum, producer of Paranormal Activity, Insidious, Sinister and other evil-spirit horror movies more enjoyable than this one. It is not without welcome bursts of humor, mostly in its ironic song choices, but if watching entitled assholes bicker before an icon-strewn desktop for about 80 minutes sounds like fun, do log on.
But if watching entitled assholes bicker before an icon-strewn desktop for about 80 minutes sounds like torture … well, give Unfriended a shot anyway, because it seems to make a subversive statement about social media technically making us anti-social by bringing out the worst in us. It is a shame that members of its core audience may be too shallow to grasp its stance or in denial.
Directed by USSR-born Levan Gabriadze and originally intended as an MTV premiere, Unfriended is not scary in the slightest, but at least it’s different … until the microbudgeted copycats flood the torrent sites, that is.
—
This random movie review escaped from the archives of Flick Attack.
