‘Follow Her’: A Muddled But Fun Cam Girl Thriller [FilmQuest 2022 Review]
Sharai Bohannon
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Follow Her is a jumble of ideas and genres that should lead to a juicy story. We have a dark comedy, a meta-psychological mystery, and an almost erotic thriller fighting for our attention within this tight 95-minute runtime. For the most part, it’s a fun ride, but it runs out of steam by the third act.
Jess Peters (Dani Barker) is an aspiring actor who cams to make ends meet. She is charming, and fun, and also walks the common line of assisting with sexual fantasies without ever having sex with her clients. One day she responds to a classified ad that leads her to meet Tom Brady (Luke Cook), who claims he wants a woman to help him finish his script. The two have chemistry, and Jess finds herself in Tom’s cabin, where things take a sinister turn.
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Follow Her is a fine time for the most part. However, it feels like it’s trying to draw a line from sex work to influencers but has a muddled idea of both worlds. If you can shake that off, things do get interesting when Jess and Tom meet. We watch her make questionable decisions thinking her followers will reward her for putting herself in danger. We watch them play this cat-and-mouse game as we begin to see the forest through the trees at Tom’s house. As we’re putting the pieces together the major reveal happens early and kills the mood. After that, the movie is stuck in a free fall.
We watch Jess spiral as she realizes that the people who did this to her might come back. Obviously, they do because they know where she lives. However, they haven’t come to put an end to this. They have come to seemingly drive home the thesis of the movie by giving Jess a choice. The cliffhanger ending doesn’t really do it for me in this case. It also just does not feel earned. I feel if the movie ended with Jess’ escape from Tom, and the realization of what was really going on. That would’ve had a stronger moment and the dialogue around the movie would be so different. It might’ve also given the main idea of the film a little weight and left some people in shock. Everything that comes after the reveal feels like a disservice to the rest of the movie.
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In addition to playing the lead, Barker also wrote Follow Her. I think she has a very fascinating voice as a writer. She and the director, Sylvia Caminer, are a very engaging duo. I want to see more from both of them. This film feels like a first feature, or maybe the first feature in this genre. We all get bitten by hindsight, and there’s so much in this world to play with. I’m keeping an eye out in case they do something in this vein again. I think there’s something here in this movie, and I want to see the filmmakers go bigger in another outing.
Let me know if you have seen Follow Her at @misssharai.
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Follow Her
Summary
It’s muddled and messy in places, but there’s a lot of fun here. There’s also something about this movie that makes you want more, even if you’re not sure why. It’s an intriguing script that ultimately runs out of steam and gets in its own way.
