Like Me *** / *****
Directed by: Robert Mockler.
Written by: Robert Mockler.
Starring: Addison Timlin (Kiya), Larry Fessenden (Marshall), Ian Nelson (Burt), Jeremy Gardner (Freddie), Ana Asensio (Anna), Nicolette Pierini (Julia), Stuart Rudin (Henry).
I’ve been sitting with Like Me – Robert Mockler’s debut film – for a few days now, trying to sort through just what I thought of the film. It isn’t a subtle film, and I’m not sure that the message of the film is any deeper than social media is a vile cesspool of human depravity, but I’m not sure it needs to me. While the concept and narrative are thin, Mockler goes over-the-top stylistically – this is a Natural Born Killers inspired fever dream visually. The lead performance by Addison Timlin – which is about the exact opposite of her work as the sweet, quiet Goth kid turned nun in Little Sister from a couple years ago, gets under the skin of this young woman, whose existence seems to hinge on getting likes.
The movie opens with Timlin’s Kiya – in a mask, holding a convenience store clerk at gunpoint, and filming the whole thing on her iPhone for upload to Youtube. She doesn’t say anything as she holds him up – and its amusing and creepy to watch him as he flails in front of the camera, not quite sure what to do or how to react even before she pulls out the gun, at which point, he pisses himself. The video draws a lot of attention on social media – of course – and soon Kiya is the talk of the internet. Most people find it funny – while, of course, stressing that they don’t really condone it per se, but it’s funny. One person who isn’t impressed is Burt (Ian Nelson) – an internet troll spewing out hateful misogyny in his response to Kiya’s video. Kiya is smart though – and sees how many “likes” she is getting, and knows she needs to up the ante. This is when she kidnaps a pervy motel owner – Marshall (Larry Fessenden, because if you need a creep in an ultra-low budget horror or horror adjacent film, you are legally required to hire Fessenden). The pair end up kind of, sort of bonding – and their drug fueled road trip gets stranger.
The film is obsessed with over-consumption – of all kinds. Mockler shows the audience, in graphic, sickening detail people eating junk food - nowhere worse than when, shortly after they meet, Kiya ties Marshall to a bed, and then force feeds junk of all kinds. The message is clear – this is sickening and disgusting, but so is everything being done online, which is over-consumption of a different sort.
Timlin really is terrific as Kiya – there is a blankness to her performance, as Kiya is someone who just doesn’t quite connect with people. She is an outsider, who wants to be a liked and loved (at least online), but cannot connect with people in any normal fashion. That is what ultimately connects her Marshall – an outsider of a different sort. Their connection makes up the dramatic heft of the movie, and it works, because Timlin and Fessenden work well together, and go to dark places as well. The biggest problem with the movie is probably the Burt character – who as played by Nelson is a one-dimensional, alt-right troglodyte – and not even an all that convincing one (sorry, but I don’t for a second buy that Burt would get THIS big on the internet). He is supposed to complete a sort of outsider triangle of the three characters – you need to have people like Kiya, like Marshall and like Burt, or else this sort of thing on the internet doesn’t work – it doesn’t get pushed this far. If you torment a store clerk on the internet, and no one is watching, did it even happen? But Burt as conceived and performed never really becomes anything deeper than a meme.
As a director, Mockler basically goes madly over-the-top, from pretty much the moment after the opening sequence in the convenience store, and doesn’t slow done. I bet the style will turn many off – or just give them massive headaches – but as someone who loved Oliver Stone in the 1990s, I quite liked the go-for-broke style here. Besides, indie movies have become fairly tame visually – they all look and feel the same. Mockler is showing even on a small budget, you can go mad visually.
Like Me is far from a perfect film – but it’s a fascinating one from beginning to end, shows that Timlin should be getting better roles, and marks Mockler as a director I want to see what he does next, You may up hating it – but it still deserves some attention.
