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JUSTIN TANNER REVIEWS NOT OKAY
If nothing else, Quinn Shephard’s sophomore directorial effort, “Not Okay,” — about a young troubled woman whose epically bad decisions lead her into a sinkhole of cancel culture ostracism — led me to some very interesting Wiki articles about the history of public shaming. The article ‘Dog Poop Girl,’ for instance, is about a South Korean woman who, in 2005, let her lapdog defecate on the floor of a subway train and refused to clean it up. When a helpful fellow passenger handed her some tissue, she used it to wipe her dog’s butt, but left the poop where it was and fled the train at the next stop. Of course, photos were taken on someone’s cellphone, posted on a popular website and within days “Dog Poop Girl” had been identified, her personal data released on the internet (also known as ‘doxing’ — the things I learn!) and the subsequent TV parodies and satirical memes drove her to quit college and eventually publish an apology. (Though ‘Dog Poop Girl’ will likely be etched on her gravestone). The ‘crime’ that zillennial Danni Sanders (a spot-on Zoey Deutch) commits in “Not Okay’ is far more egregious than refusing to curb her dog — the magnitude of its gross insensitivity is truly jaw dropping. But the public response to her misdeed (shown at the top of the film in a montage of escalating social media vitriol, including comparisons to Hitler) is so off-the-charts savage (and culturally accurate to the moment) that the question of “What’s worse? The crime or the punishment?” becomes a genuine dilemma. And lands “Not Okay” in that sweet spot where black comedy thrives.
Deutch’s character, Danni, is a socially awkward photo editor at a sleazy online magazine called Depravity. She’s cute and friendly, and at first we can’t imagine why everyone at her job seems to hate her - but then she opens her mouth, and her graceless, omniverously needy affect, which is the personification of all the worst traits of the Tik Tok generation, is an instant buzzkill. It’s not that she’s so different from all the other upward reaching twentysomethings, with their voracious Pac Man willingness to do anything to get followers. It’s that she doesn’t have the built-in self awareness to hide her blatant hunger to fit in. She naively lets it all hang out, not realizing that what she thinks of as enthusiasm reads like flop sweat desperation to everyone in her circle. When she pitches an article titled “Why Am I So Sad?” to her boss, Susan (a disastrously miscast Negin Farsad), citing ‘living in Bushwick,’ her ‘lack of a private office’ and ‘missing 9/11’ as the main reasons for her depression, Susan comments: “In general, I think we try to avoid expressing any kind of FOMO about 9/11.” To which Danni replies: “Can’t tone deaf be, like, a brand, though?” This exchange is golden. But the performance by Farsad is so laden with unnecessary subtext (and pitched to the frickin’ rafters) that the tone of the movie is immediately (almost irrevocably) hobbled.
Though director Shephard manages to regain her footing by the second act (and handles all the scenes where earnestness is required quite well), her supreme unsuitability for satire is glaringly obvious from the broad archness she brings to the comedy, which resembles a community theatre production of a Neil Simon play. And yet, the premise is so good — with the built in, no-fail structure of a Billy Wilder script — that “Not Okay” is able to survive the shaky first fifteen minutes, and, once the engine of the plot kicks in, hook us absolutely. And then there’s the magnetic, endearing Zoey Deutch, whose star-quality (and fearless commitment to playing a terrible person), makes even the rough patches watchable and compelling. Her character, Danni, makes her first big mistake by falling for Colin (Dylan O’Brien), a gorgeous but idiotic marijuana-influencer who makes his screen entrance exhaling the largest cinematic cloud of pot smoke since ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”
It’s fun to see Deutch reunited with O’Brien, who appeared with her in this year’s Hitchcockian thriller “The Outfit.” In that film he was perhaps the weakest link, outclassed by Johnny Flynn, Simon Russell Beale, and the peerless Mark Rylance. But in “Not Okay,” O’Brien is a highlight with his sexy, low key swagger and impeccable comedic timing. And he and Deutch generate a palpable, goofy heat together, making their disastrous tryst funny and appalling at the same. At one point, in a bathroom lit like a Mario Bava giallo, the two have the unsexiest sex scene imaginable: Deutch’s reading of the line “Did you just come in me?” is an example of the unexpected turns that makes her work such a constant delight. Luckily, the real romance for Danni is not with the drippy Colin, but with Rowan (a heartbreaking Mia Isaac) who she meets at a support group for trauma survivors that plays like one of the ‘cancer tourist’ scenes from “Fight Club” if it was directed by Ron Howard for the Disney Channel. Rowan doesn’t trust Danni at first but slowly, glacially, she warms up, and the two become surrogate sisters. This relationship deepens the film and becomes Danni’s one real chance for redemption.
As the movie moves into its terrific third act, director Shephard finally gets her sea legs. And the winning finale — which has the audacity to allow for some gorgeously written original poetry to bring us home — lands with subtle warmth and an unexpected grace. Given the nature of the world right now, the idea of grief appropriation has never been more potent. Every time we hear about “thoughts and prayers” or someone posts an Instagram pic in order to ‘virtue signal’ the day’s terrible event, we have to ask ourselves “when does empathy cross over into ‘look at me’?” “Not Okay,” after a rough start, manages to talk about this thorny subject with heart and humor. And if the ending doesn’t quite give us the kind of redemption we would like, it manages to give us exactly the redemption that we need. STREAMING ON HULU
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COURTESY OF SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES
