Oh, what a web she weaves.
With Influencer, writer-director Kurtis David Harder (Spiral) successfully binds dazzling visual elements with an intricately plotted story that just keeps twisting.
Madison (Emily Tennant), a beautiful travel blogger and media influencer, is unhappily flying solo on a backpacking trip through Thailand, when she meets CW (Cassandra Naud), a free-spirited adventurer who offers to show her around.
The mysterious CW is the polar opposite of pale blonde Madison, most notably due to a prominent birthmark on her face, though she too is unmistakably attractive.
The new-found friends explore the intoxicatingly exotic landscape until CW shockingly abandons Madison on an island with no food or water, and assumes her identity.
We learn that CW’s diabolical modus operandi has been used before, and spend the majority of Influencer riding shotgun with an extremely complicated woman with an apparent ax to grind against alluring travel bloggers.
The tone throughout reminded me of Patricia Highsmith, the author of Strangers on a Train and The Talented Mr. Ripley, novels about unlikely and conflicted villains marching to their own drummers.
Cassandra Naud, an actress with an actual facial birthmark, absolutely owns Influencer as an often inscrutable psychopath with ninja Photoshop skills. We might even discover a wee sliver of empathy for CW, a testament to the multiple layers of nuance that Naud brings to every scene.
Quick-thinking and resourcefulness are usually attributes we admire in a leading character. Is it unthinkable that it’s a Bad Guy (Gal)?
Recommended with no reservations.
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