Influencer is a 2023 mystery-thriller about a young woman influencer broadcasting her experiences in Thailand who meets an eclectic and enigmatic woman who offers to show her more of the country.
Traveling is all about experiencing new things. Influencer Madison (Emily Tennant) is backpacking solo in Thailand, and broadcasting all of the beautiful sights and cuisine to her thousands of followers. “You just have to be here!,” opines Madison. Her captions and energy put across zeal, but away from the record button, Madison is miserable. She wasn’t supposed to take this trip alone, but her boyfriend, Ryan (Rory J Saper) bailed at the last minute and the relationship seems like it’s on its last legs after a contentious FaceTime.
She’s going through the motions until she is saved from an awkward encounter by a young woman who goes by “CW” (Cassandra Naud). CW offers to show her the real essence of the country, all while being the antithesis of Madison. CW doesn’t like her photo taken and has no social media, but she has a presence, that indescribable “it” that people naturally—if unwittingly—follow to places they shouldn’t.
Around the 26 minute mark of runtime, Influencer launches its title credits and shifts perspective in a way only people who watched the trailer (spoiler alert: I did not) could predict. From this point on, it’s a whip-paced and ultra-contained cat and mouse (throw in a fox as well) game with a surprise here and there. Marry, say, A Perfect Getaway with last year’s No Exit with a smidge of A Simple Favor and this would likely be one of the offspring.
Settings can definitely make movies better than they might be otherwise. In Influencer, directed by Kurtis Davis Harder, the events were shot on location in both Thailand and Canada. It’s a strong choice, as the former—seemingly where most of the movie was filmed, doubles both as a beautiful place of authentic beauty and a seedy, off-the-grid locale. Harder, a director/producer with previous thriller/horror experience, uses the wide-open locale and manages to make it feel not quite claustrophobic, but stifling. Instagram is used to slowly put the pieces together to the mystery at hand in a way that makes total sense in present day. He’s the author of a really great jump scare too, one of the better ones in recent memory.
When it comes to the modern pitfalls of social media and the often damaging effect it can have on someone who isn’t in the right frame of mind, I judge most films in the same space against Ingrid Goes West, a feature that has only aged like fine wine since its release. Ingrid Goes West dug pretty deep in its main characters and was quite pessimistic in its view of influencer culture and the false sense of connectivity social media can bring, particularly to those in questionable mental states.
Co-written by Harder and Tesh Guttikonda, sure, Influencer isn’t operating in the exact same mold but it is trying to say something about the space, and unfortunately it doesn’t seem that interested in providing any meaty context or backstory to its characters that would help in that endeavor. As such, the story is a really twisty, entertaining one (avoiding any implied spoilers, Influencer is best if one knows little, stay far away from the trailer), but not anything more than that since the characters generally end in the same place they began.
Being that there’s not a ton to their characters (perhaps intentionally, everyone here is fake to some level), much of the cast is fine but with little opportunity to be anything more. The only cast member that doesn’t apply to is Naud. The young actress is not only uniquely striking, she showcases a lot of range from early amiable affability to late cunning calculation. Mostly a television and shorts actor to this point, her work here could be a launching point into the silver screen side of things, or at least into more prominent horrors and thrillers.
More shallow than substance but certainly thrilling, Influencer earns likes through a steady direction and a breakout co-lead performance from Naud. Influencer is currently streaming now on Shudder.