What it was actually about was pretty disappointing, but more on that later.
The poster alone was probably responsible for putting it on my docket on Thursday night, when I got a late start on trying to watch a movie and realized that my recently acquired iTunes rental of Tar was 158 minutes long. (The movie was 158 minutes long -- the rental was 30 days, then 48 hours once I started watching.)
**Spoilers for Not Okay.**
I'll start out by saying that almost every character in this movie is disagreeable in some way or another. I can think of only two, possibly three, or maybe a fourth character who doesn't make you want to slap them at some point during the movie. (Actually, the constantly crying dad is pretty slappable, even if his other traits are innocuous enough.)
But the gay characters are particularly disagreeable.
Let's start out by establishing our protagonist. Danni Sanders (Zoey Deutsch) is a hapless flibbertigibbet who is a photo editor at online culture magazine Depravity, but desperately longs to be a writer. Unfortunately, she has no clue. She submits an article called "Why Am I So Sad" that includes what she considers to be valid reasons for sadness, like living in Bushwick (Brooklyn) and having missed 9/11 because her family was on a cruise. I think you can already see the broadness of Not Okay. Danni is forever walking a line between just pitiable and actually toxic.
However, this is our protagonist, and in the tradition of other flawed protagonists, she means well and acts out of insecurity/awkwardness more than malice.
That leaves the malice up for grabs, and the gay characters snatch it.
One more thing about Danni before we get to them. A text at the beginning gives a "humorous" twist on a trigger warning, letting us know that in addition to flashing lights, the movie has an unlikable female protagonist. This does end up being true. See, to get attention, Danni posts a bunch of pictures on Insta of supposedly being in Paris for a writer's workshop -- a "harmless" ruse that ends up becoming a problem for her when the actual Paris is rocked by a series of terrorist bombings. Danni has to explain her own safety and regale concerned followers with the experiences she's just been through. Instead of coming clean, Danni leans in to the attention and concocts a big survivor story that snowballs, goes viral, and ultimately unravels in a way familiar to anyone who's seen a movie about a character who gets in over their head on a "harmless" lie.
At the point of her first interaction with the two gay people who work with her, though, she's just insecure and awkward.
First we meet Harper (Nadia Alexander), a kiss-ass who shows up at the door of Danni's editor's office moments after said editor has chewed Danni out for the tone deaf story she submitted. By contrast, the editor (also a wicked caricature) heaps praise on Harper, who gloats superciliously and in a manner that seems specifically directed at Danni. She's the antagonist in this film in the strictest literary sense, in that she most directly counteracts the desires of the protagonist. This is not, of course, to say that anything she's guilty of is worse than anything Danni is guilty of.
A scene or two later, we see the two of them riding in an elevator alongside Larson (Dash Perry), another openly gay staffer at the magazine. Larson is initially friendly enough with Danni, explaining that he and Harper are going to "queer bowling" -- but understandably stiffens when Danni meets that with a cringey appropriation of "Yassss queen!" Fair enough. He quickly shuts her down when she makes an overture toward attending, confirming the event is only for people who identify as gay. After a few more awkward moments by Danni, she exits the elevator ahead of them and Harper says "I hate straight people." (I might be conflating this with another scene, but Harper definitely says she hates straight people at one point.)
Larson never demonstrates anything other than justifiable annoyance with Danni, but he also shows no spine. Once she's "returned" from her trip and is telling her story to a group of eager onlookers at the Depravity offices, his superficiality emerges as he changes course and invites her to queer bowling -- so eager to sell out his own instincts about her problematic behavior in order to become a starfucker. (You might say this is compassion after Danni's ordeal, but the movie depicts him as having stars in his eyes at Danni's sudden celebrity.) Harper is also in attendance at this story, apparently also suckered by it, but we can tell from some quizzical looks that she's onto Danni.
We don't see a lot more of Larson, but Harper then proceeds to set about trying to ruin Danni -- partly out of the professional jealousy that has arisen from Danni's sudden success at Depravity, and partly out of, well, malice. (Doing a civic justice by exposing a fraud might also be a very small part of it, though she does mention how writing this story will benefit her career. Ugh.)
I might not be writing this post if it weren't for the extremely uncharitable representation of the film's third gay character, who is obviously coded as gay even if his sexuality is never mentioned. This is a talk show host played by Preston Martin, who unleashes a slew of vapid lingo as he conducts the most superficial interview ever with Danni -- cutting her off with "And that's all the time we have" before she's even gotten two sentences into her story, so they can do "goat yoga" or something. It's likely meant by writer-director Quinn Shepherd as a critique of the media in the social media age, but the way it's presented, his vapidity is intrinsically linked with his queerness.
Here's the problem with my whole argument: Shepherd herself is gay, and she's actually in a relationship with Alexander, who plays her antagonist.
Surely there is an argument to be made that being gay yourself excuses you of any accusations of homophobia. Any member of a minority group has unofficial license to skewer their own kind.
To me, though, this does not excuse you from careless filmmaking, even potentially irresponsible filmmaking. Even if I am not gay myself, I think I can sense when a movie is a bit too mean to its minority characters, whatever the minority might be. And I don't think it's being appropriative to feel offended on their behalf.
Shepherd might have helped things by including one queer character who wasn't vindictive, spineless or excessively shallow. The way she's structured the movie, the only characters who are given any depth at all are Danni and another actual survivor (of a school shooting) who has become something of an activist celebrity, played by Mia Isaac. Harper would probably be next closest, but any depth we get reflects poorly on her. When Danni asks why Harper has worked so hard to expose her, Harper's answer is "Because I don't like you."
Not great.
Sure Danni is clueless and easily led down bad paths, but when we first meet her she's friendly and it's clear she is just trying to find her place in the world. That Harper decided she doesn't like her at that point seems like excessive dumping on a person who is already her own worst enemy.
I was surprised on Wikipedia to see that Not Okay has received "generally favorable reviews." I wonder if that has to do with what number of "sharp" critiques of our social media age those critics had seen before this one.
My classic example of this sort of movie is Ingrid Goes West, a 2017 film that made my top ten of that year. The pitfalls of "following" (i.e. online stalking) and watching others live their "best life" through Instagram are explored wickedly there.
But if I saw Ingrid Goes West for the first time today, I'm sure it would suffer from the fact that I've seen too many other movies like this -- for example, just having seen Sissy less than a month ago. I didn't like Sissy much, and Not Okay is even worse. Even a superior example of the form like Ingrid Goes West has a tough battle to fight if the material has been done to death, which it now has.
Add in some (probably unintentional) gay bashing by a gay filmmaker, and you have a film that is, well, not okay.
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