Influencer

Directed by Kurtis David Harder, Influencer follows Emily Tennant’s Madison as her Thailand trip takes a sinister turn after meeting Cassandra Naud’s CW. It’s compelling subject matter that’s employed to distressingly uninvolving (and increasingly interminable) effect by Harder, as the filmmaker, armed with his and Tesh Guttikonda’s screenplay, delivers an overly (and egregiously) deliberate thriller that contains few attributes designed to sustain the viewer’s interest – with the arms-length atmosphere perpetuated by Harder’s recurring (and progressively infuriating) refusal to develop Naud’s mysterious figure in the slightest. (We never come close to understanding what makes her tick and why she does what she does, for example.) And while the decision to mostly frame the proceedings from the perspective of its villain is certainly novel (and intriguing), Influencer‘s inability to capture one’s attention even fleetingly renders its few positives moot and ensures that it feels so much longer than its 92 minutes.

* out of ****