Review - Ingrid goes west

What does friendship mean? What does happiness mean? When everyone on social media looks never alone, never unhappy, is that what real like should be like? Or is there nothing actually real in bubbly social media? Are all the bubbly lives on social media artificial creations, not even the edited best of those lives, but just staged scenes in the middle of actual lives?

That is the question facing the main character Ingrid in "Ingrid goes west". She is mentally ill and obsessed with social media. She mistakes lives on social media with actual lives. She cannot wrap her head around the way she actually feels and the way people's lives seem to be playing out on social media.

People's lives seem to have clear simple meanings on social media. They are able to succintly state truths about the world via quotes from their favourite books. They have favorite restaturants, opinions about art and fashion, and confident business ideas. They do not seem to have actual cares or worries. Their lives seem full and uncomplicated.

Those are all the opposite of Ingrid's existence. All the confusion swirling around her seem to be absent in the social media. She feels like her elixir is to live one of these lives. She wants to befreind a social media darling and be part of that. She wants the meaning that having people see her on social media. She wants the meaning that she ascribes to the people she follows.

The movie is about what she does in search of that empty meaning, and how her life is ultimately devioid of meaning beyond who she really is. Its also about freindships and pretending to be someone and how that will always unravel, with terrible consequences.

I really enjoyed watching the movie. Basically because it is a dark exploration of themes I struggle to comprehend. It is not exactly feel good. Though it does have a Hollywood ending. But the end is not exactly hopeful. It feels like the way life is