With the rocket ship of social media soaring ever higher, it has started to play a bigger role in films in every genre. It does not matter how many people say that society’s massive use of social media is slowly tearing us a part in just about every way. It hurts us mentally, especially people who fall victims to the comparison game. Just seeing someone being somewhere cool, can cause depression, or a post not getting enough likes can led to a devaluation of self-worth. It could also make a person do something dangerous to get more views. Plus all of the viewing and liking and scrolling leads to less productivity and leads to a brain numbness that can be hard to break. Then to top it all off, it has become a toxic place to help people spew all sorts of vile opinions that cause divisions in families, friends, and society at large, but yet our addiction persists, because that is what addictions do. It does not matter how bad it is for us, we are hooked, and we cannot turn off the stimulus. Movies have taken notice, and they are now capitalizing on these stories, and they are integrating social media storylines into the films more and more.
The most diabolical version of a story that emphasizes the importance of likes to a person’s psyche is Not Okay, a movie that released onto Hulu a couple of weeks ago. It follows the story of Danni on her rise and fall of social media stardom to cancelation. Danni works for a blog website that discusses various pop culture and news topics, and she is close to the bottom of the food chain, but she wants so badly to rise to the top. To start her climb, she pretends that she is going to a writer’s convention in Paris, and she starts to photoshop pictures of herself at Parisian landmarks, but while she is pretending, a terrorist attack occurs in Paris, and people start to ask if she is okay. Instead of coming clean, she doubles down on the lie, then triples down, then quadruple downs, to the point where she is attending a trauma therapy group that is alcoholics anonymous like, even though she was not actually there. All of this just because she loves the likes. The whole movie will make you cringe away from the screen as Danni continues to make awful choices, but it is not just her that is social media obsessed and a terrible person, there are quite a few others in the film that would fall into this bin as well. The worst part is that it seems like such a believable story.
Next there is Bodies Bodies Bodies, a new release about a group of rich millennials who get together for a house party during a hurricane. They are almost constantly on their phones and trying to make tik toks. Then the power goes out, and one of them is found with their throat slashed. So pandemonium ensues as they try to figure out who the culprit is behind the crime. When it gets to the end of the movie, the audience finds out that the first death was due to social media, and it was all totally preventable, and it ended up causing the death of just about everyone else in the group.
My favorite of these recent social media centric releases came out this weekend, Fall. Fall is an adventure junkie movie that causes your palms to sweat for almost one hundred minutes straight. It starts out with Becky, Hunter, and Dan climbing high up on the granite face of a mountain, and a mishap causes Dan to fall to his death, leaving his wife, Becky traumatized and depressed. Hunter on the other hand found a new vigor for life and making sure that she continues to live it to the fullest, and she started her own adventure YouTube page. Before Dan died, she was rock climbing without ropes, so she was already set to succeed in this area, but she took it to another level, and she became obsessed with putting on this new adventurous persona.
To get Becky out of her slump, Hunter comes up with an idea to climb a TV tower that is 2,000 feet tall, and it is the fourth largest structure in the U.S. Reluctantly Becky agrees, although she does try to drop out multiple times on the way to the structure and on the way up. The tower is basically in the middle of nowhere. It is rusted and a little worst for wear, but they start the journey none the less. The ladder starts out on the inside of the structure, there is a lattice around it, and Becky and Hunter and tied together for “safety.” Once they get a little bit past halfway, the lattice disappears, and the ladder is completely exposed on a pole. They get to the top and do some incredibly stupid stunts to take pictures, and then they attempt to climb down, but the ladder breaks, and they are left stranded on the top of tower on a piece of metal that is less than six feet in diameter with no way down and no way to communicate with the outside world.
Let’s talk safety. In Fall, when they get to the TV tower, Becky and Hunter are tied together as they climb the tower, and that is their only form of safety. This is hardly safe; in fact, it seems more like a way to assure both people die if an accident happens. This is not like alpinists climbing up steep hills, this is literally vertical, so if the person on the top falls, they will fall on the person below them, and that will assuredly be the end of both people. If the reverse happened, the person on top is probably not ready for it, so having a one hundred plus pound force unexpectedly pull down on you will likely result in death. The few instances where the rope did come in handy, I would say were exaggerations, and if it was a real-world situation both people would have died. Also, there is no way that there is a 2,000 foot tower with a giant ladder that does not have a spot for a person to clip into, so if they fall they would have some level of safety. Not to mention that it does not make any sense to take the lattice away at the higher section.
In a similar vein of safety, the audience should question both of their decision making, and I am not even talking about the choices to hang off from the top without a rope for a picture, or the idea to jump for a bookbag on a rope. I am talking about the very basic decision of taking Becky climbing in general. In the opening scene she spends most of it being terrified, it is baffling how she even made it up that high, because she seems too terrified to make any moves up on the cliff. So she probably should not be climbing in general. Then when she gets to the tower, she continually is trying to get out of it, because she is scared! This is literally the last trait you would want in a climbing partner. She is literally scared of heights, and now she has someone else’s life in her hands. It is a wild way to portray someone in a climbing movie. Plus when they are at the top, it would make sense to have the rope around the pole, and for both of them to still be clipped in, but instead they are mainly unharnessed while at the top.
Next thing that deserves considerable examination is their friendship. Hunter continually pressures Becky to do things that are outside of her comfort zone, and this is not just going outside of your comfort zone by trying a new food or a new drink. This is going out of your comfort zone by risking your life in insane ways. She literally peer pressured her to hang from a 2,000-foot tower without a rope just for a selfie. I do not care how strong you are and how much I trust you, I am not going to trust your grasp enough to dangle off a cliff. Also Hunter is recording a video while driving and not even looking at the road, and she almost gets them both plowed over, because she is not looking at the road. She does not even apologize for almost killing her friend! The only reason the ladder fell in the first place was because Hunter was shaking it to make Becky scared, and this caused the bolt to fall off.
Finally, one of the big reveals is that Hunter was sleeping with Becky’s husband. Despite all that Becky tried to be her friend and encouraged her to be herself, instead of some cocky YouTuber, but to be fair, Becky did get final revenge with a dumb idea. At the beginning of being trapped, they tried to send a phone down in a shoe wrapped in a bra, so that it would not break, but they were unsuccessful. Then Becky has the chance to try it again, and she puts the phone in a shoe, and then she shoves the shoe in a gaping wound that Hunter’s corpse has, then she shoves it off the edge. This is a wild move! Not only is the shoe missing the added cushioning of the bra, but she put it into a dense body that would just make it more likely for the phone to break!
When I went to see this movie, I was baffled by the run time over one hundred minutes, and I will be honest it was a bit much, but it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Even writing this paper and thinking about the movie, has made my hands sweaty again. There were multiple times when I would put my hands on my face in despair at their stupid decisions that although fake still made me feel uncomfortable to watch. This movie was right up my alley, and I loved it! It creates so many feelings, and although some of the serious emotions miss, the rest is adrenaline and nerve filled. It is a fun day at the movies in the summer with some good views of desert and mountainous landscapes. I give Fall 3 Stars, and I recommend seeing it! So social media is increasing its presence in films, and at times it has become the centerpiece of them. Some of these films have been good, but with their social media premise they have failed to be great.
Other Movies the Past Two Weeks:
Bullet Train: Interesting and funny, until it feels like it should have ended 30 minutes ago.
Prey: A Predator prequel that takes place around a Native American tribe. It has a slow start, but it picks it up for a great rest of the film. Sad it was a straight to Hulu film, it would have been great in theaters.
Thirteen Lives: Go watch the documentary The Rescue on Disney+ instead.
Whiplash: SO much stress! Such an incredible movie, I cannot recommend watching it enough.
The Dark Knight: I have seen this movie a million times, but it has been years since I last watched it, and it is still and banger. One of the best movies ever!!!
Canyonlands: A terrible Native American horror movie, go watch Prey instead.
Day Shift: A Netflix action movie about vampires that will undoubtedly get an unmerited sequel.
Easter Sunday: A comedy that has its best moments when Tiffany Haddish is in it. So like five good minutes in a one hundred minute movie.
New Rankings:
Fall: 3 Stars
Not Okay: 3 Stars
Bodies Bodies Bodies: 3 Stars
Bullet Train: 3 Stars
Prey: 3.5 Stars
Thirteen Lives: 3 Stars
Whiplash: 5 Stars
The Dark Knight: 5 Stars
Canyonlands: 1.5 Stars
Day Shift: 2.5 Stars
Easter Sunday: 2 Stars
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