'Ingrid Goes West' Red Band Trailer: Aubrey Plaza Ruins A Wedding, Stalks Elizabeth Olsen
One of the buzzed about titles from the 2017 Sundance Film Festival this year was Ingrid Goes West, a dark comedy about a girl (Aubrey Plaza of Parks and Recreation) who lives vicariously through those she follows on Instagram and has delusions of her friendship with them. The film was one of the many that got picked up from the festival this year, and now you can watch the first Ingrid Goes West trailer to see what you have to look forward to. But beware, because this is a red band trailer, due to one particularly inappropriate word being used rather viciously.
Aubrey Plaza is fantastic in this movie, playing a girl who is always on the edge of losing her mind (and she certainly does a couple times). She never overplays her addiction to creating a life that looks glamorous and enviable, which grounds her mental instability. Or maybe she does, but we've just become so used to this kind of vapid behavior that it's more normal than it should be. In either case, that's relatively scary.
Beyond Plaza's outstanding lead performance, O'Shea Jackson Jr. proves that he has some charisma and acting skills outside of his debut playing his father, Ice Cube, in Straight Outta Compton. He's funny, charming and a huge Batman fan. Plus, Elizabeth Olsen unsurprisingly also delivers a praiseworhty supporting performance as the object of Plaza's affection, a woman who has made a living out of Instagram and appears to be a Los Angeles resident who has it all together. Or at least that's what she posts online.
Ingrid Goes West was one of our favorite films of Sundance, and it was one that I personally enjoyed quite a bit as well. It gets a little darker than you might think (as shown in the trailer), but it's genuinely funny and makes for a fantastic directorial debut from Matt Spicer, who also wrote the script with David Branson Smith, which won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting award at the fest. For more, you can read Peter Sciretta's Sundance review right here.
Following the death of her mother and a series of self-inflicted setbacks, young Ingrid Thorburn (Aubrey Plaza) escapes a humdrum existence by moving out West to befriend her Instagram obsession and LA socialite Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen). After a quick bond is forged between these unlikeliest of friends, the façade begins to crack in both women's lives — with comically malicious results.