Meet Abbie Rose. She is a top “social influencer” meaning a person who uses their personality or good looks to be a travelling salesperson for any Tom Dick and Harry entity wanting to peddle their goods on social media. They are a slippery group focusing on imagery for the short attention span of those social media lapper uppers. Sell, sell and sell and the more hits, likes and views your personage earns or often buys the higher income your image pulls in.
Yes I have seen them all over Europe some with a make-up crew and photographers to be that perfect image holding a purse or wearing a dress of a sponsor. The more views and likes the more goods the social influencer sells. A form of crude capitalism adapting to modern social media. Who cares about a view past the influencer into the ocean or canyon behind them as the backdrop exists to sell, sell and sell more. The influencers I have seen have a self-satisfied vacant look on their face. They rather emphasize the twit in Twitter.
And Abbie Rose (Kasia Szarek) must be one of cinema’s absolutely obnoxious characters not in a mean way but rather in a stupid, artificial, greedy and pompous way. She has escaped an irrelevant college degree that destined her to a life of serving tables and living in a crappy apartment. Instead she has clawed her way near the top of the social influencer pyramid. So one may admire her ambition but not its goals. She also knows what she wants and skillfully negotiates to get it. In this case it’s a social influencer contract with a large cosmetic company Nutrocon known to ravage the Amazonian rain forest for palm oil to be used in cosmetic products, turning a blind eye to sexual harassment in its workforce and to test its products on animals.
4 hackers working for # 1 break into Abbie’s home and force her to make a seemingly innocuous video offering a free box of Nutrocon cosmetics to the first 50 responders. The hackers are mostly a group of bumblers more social outcasts than social activists looking for a payout for their own projects.
They are successful in their devious project driving down the share price of Nutrocon making Number 1! wealthy with her huge put on the stock. Abbie obtains success when she least expects it. We also learn that she is vulnerable and perhaps not such a twit we thought she was. You might call this a satirical comedy but it slams home the vacuous consumerism and obsession with image. Let’s say the Kardashian clan won’t be laughing at this film.
Director Meghan Weinstein is an L.A. based Canadian filmmaker who grew up in Vancouver and San Francisco. Her films capture the absurd and often hilarious complexities of human connection, while featuring carefully casted ensembles and eye-catching imagery. She loves collaborating with actors to create quirky, out of the box characters.
The film is distributed by Breaking Glass Pictures and released on September 14th on DVD and VOD platforms including iTunes/Apple TV, Amazon, Google Play, Vudu and through local cable and satellite producers.
Catch the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eChy46c_Lf8
A Bird's Eye View of Fashion, Food, Travel, Culture, Beverage and Curiosity 