Assassination Nation is a 2018 dark satire about a group of young girls who become the target of an angry mob after everyone’s computer has been hacked.
There is no doubt that this movie is going to upset many who watch. In the first five minutes it warns the audience by displaying certain “Trigger Warnings” that the film will contain: gore, racism, rape, homophobia, foul language, suicide, nudity, drug use, etc. Although the film does attack certain values, I still found it to be a very uplifting experience that unabashedly gives a middle finger to Trump’s version of America. Many movies like to appease to a wide audience and do their best not to offend anyone. That’s not the case with this one.
Our lead character is Lilly (Odessa Young), a high school student who is very much comfortable with her sexuality. She sees no issues with telling her friends her sexual hang ups with her boyfriend Mark (Bill Skarsgard) and feels no direct shame with sharing provocative images of her self to am much older man nick named Daddy. Like many of us who use the internet. We are just sharing things privately among the people we know, oblivious to the fact that we can be exposed.
After the mayor of Salem (yes, the name of the town is intentional) has his computer hacked and it shows that he was a closeted homosexual. A lot of people from both sides begin attacking him to the point that he ends up doing something rather drastic. Even after his actions, many still attack him. Next a high school principal is hacked and is accused of being a pedophile by having images of his young daughter taking a bath. Lilly makes a strong argument with her more conservative parents. Saying that nudity doesn’t automatically equal erotic. Soon everyone in the town has been hacked and things go from very bad to an end of the world type scenario.
The entire cast is great with standout performances by Suki Waterhouse, Joel McHale and Hari Nef, but it’s Young’s performance of Lilly that stands out the strongest. She is a flawed person and that makes her much more believable in her actions. In most other movies her character would have been written as the good girl who does one rebellious thing and than suffers because of it. Lilly clearly knows what she is doing and doesn’t feel bad at the start. This is due to the fact that when you are young, you feel invincible, like nothing will ever hurt you. When her parents find out that she was sending racy images of herself to an older guy. I wasn’t upset that they kicked her out, but as parents they should have at least tried to calmly understand why she did that.
This is the second feature from director Sam Levinson (son of Barry Levinson) and he does a fantastic job with both the cast and crew. There is a great split screen sequence that added a lot to how social media and the internet has been used to corrupt many of us. In a way this movie is an exploitation movie that shows how we are all being exploited. It did take some time to fully get into the story. But after the moment when everyone’s account get’s hacked and the girls are to blame. I could not take my eyes off the screen.
Even though Assassination Nation is a work of fiction. I could easily believe something like this going down. The premise of a community willing to kill each other to hide the contents of their computer is more plausible than a government allowing one night for people to kill, i.e., The Purge franchise. The internet has been used to expose many people that it could not do before. Look at what happened to various celebrities who had their computer’s hacked. Remember when Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton had nude pictures of themselves illegally uploaded. Did you look at them? Remember recently when James Gunn was fired from Disney because of tweets he made way before he was even hired. The internet has brought down and built up many people and if everyone’s secrets were exposed to everyone. I think we could have a situation very similar to this.
With a 65 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 53 percent rating on Meta Critic, it’s clear to see that this movie is very divisive. There is no way to have any middle ground with this movie. You are either going to love it or hate it. Many claim that the movie supports school shootings by showing young girls carrying guns. Even though there is not one gun shown in actual school. For me Assassination Nation is the Fight Club for millennials, The Legend of Billie Jean for a new generation of women. There is a great speech said by Lilly at the end that basically blames all of us on how women are suppose to behave. I found myself agreeing with 85 percent of what she said.