Happy Sunday, Streamers.
This week, we’ve got a smart zeitgeist-y satire that doubles as a trojan horse for some scathing commentary on cultural appropriation, along with another round of Stream It or Skip It.
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Now let’s get to it.
Rec Room: Not Okay
What It’s About: A young woman (Zoey Deutch) desperate for friends and fame fakes a trip to Paris for clout online, only to be caught in a quagmire when a real-life terrorist event happens in Paris, providing all the attention and fame she craves (as long as she continues to lie about having been there).
Why You Should Watch: For black comedy and hysterical satire of Gen-Z culture
Did you post a black square in June 2020? It’s ok, this is a safe space. If you did, and maybe have some conflicting feelings about the emptiness of that gesture in retrospect, then do I have a movie for you. Not Okay’s darkly funny take on how desperate our generation is for validation online isn’t necessarily surprising or new. What instead catches you off guard is where the story lands; the unlikable female protagonist isn’t redeemed but rather battered by a powerful lesson we all could take to heart in this era of online virtue-signaling. Even if you have the best intentions (or, in Danni’s case, don’t at all), these online movements can often take the air out of the actual movements they were initially supposed to highlight, drowning out the marginalized voices looking for support as users eagerly glob onto the social trend en masse.
If that conclusion sounds heavy, well, it is. What isn’t is the ride Not Okay takes you on to get there, which is why the ending is so pleasantly surprising. Zoey Deutch is fantastic as a cringeworthy clout-chaser, a slow motion car crash you can’t turn away from as she “YAS QUEENs” and awkwardly mimics the latest TikTok trends. Dylan O’Brien is just as good as her love interest, doing a hilariously pitch-perfect take on the fboi-vape-bro-Machine Kelly/Pete Davidson archetype that’s come into vogue as of late (his Twitter feed suggests he may even be method acting?).
I’ll admit that many performances from the supporting cast are a little weak, and at times you can feel the realities of a TV movie budget rubbing against the film's aspirations (CGI Paris has never looked worse, and neither have “out of control” street demonstrations). All those things aside, Not Okay is a great way to spend a tight 90 minutes nervously laughing as you recognize the inherent narcissism that goes hand in hand with the constant online approval-seeking we all (or some of us) partake in regularly.
Who’s In It, and Where You Probably Know Them From:
Zoey Deutch - Set It Up, The Disaster Artist, Everybody Wants Some, and Why Him?
Dylan O’Brien - Five years (!!!) on MTV’s Teen Wolf, the Maze Runner Trilogy (lol), The Internship, and that one episode in last season’s Curb Your Enthusiasm in which Larry hates his band.
HONORABLE MENTION: Embeth Davitz - who you may remember from Army of Darkness, Bicentennial Man, or most importantly, as Ms. Honey in Matilda.
Who Made It, and What Else Have They Done: The film was written and directed by Quinn Shephard and is one of her first films as a writer/director. She has previously acted in teen dramas like The Miseducation of Cameron Post and Midnight Sun, which could explain some of the more melodramatic aspects of Not Okay.
Where You Can Watch: Hulu
Stream It or Skip It?
First, the results from last week: Blonde took the top spot, with 82% of you voting to Stream It, followed by Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio with a lukewarm 55% of votes. A League of Their Own looks to be striking out (sorry) with the Stream Team, with 60% of you voting to Skip It.
This week, we’ve got two pieces of content below that we want to get your thoughts on. Use the polls to tell us - are you going to Stream It? Or Skip It?
Samaritan
Coming to Prime Video on August 26th, Sylvester Stallone plays an aging superhero… trash man?
Andor
This upcoming prequel to Rogue One comes to Disney+ on September 21st and is the latest in Disney’s relentless attempts to mine the Star Wars franchise. You remember Rogue One, right? The 2016 movie that took place after the prequel trilogy (but right before the original trilogy) and is based on one line from the original opening scroll George Lucas wrote almost fifty years ago? We all remember, right? No one is getting weary or confused, right?