The Columnist is available now on digital platforms in the UK and Irealand, courtesy of Vertigo Releasing.
Synopsis
Whatever you do, don’t read the comments… Columnist and author Femke (Katya Herbers) is flooded with anonymous nasty messages and death threats on social media. One day she has enough and decides to take revenge.
Review
What do you think happens when you cross over what feels like a Black Mirror episode if Edgar Wright managed to get his hands on it? I suspect you would get something like The Columnist, a Dutch comedy horror film starring Katja Herbers.
What we have here is a satirical and even fun, self-aware thriller film about social commentary, online trolls and what is truly right and wrong when it comes to how we as human beings choose to respond to hatred – with a little bit of murder thrown in.
This film opens with a close-up of our main character, a columnist named Femke Boot, as she nervously awaits a television interview, fiddling and biting her nails. This is a habit that she keeps throughout the film, a nervous tick whenever something feels like it’s about to go wrong. It feels like the perfect set-up for a film where everything is about to go horribly wrong.
We learn very quickly through the television interview that Femke is receiving death threats and hate messages on her social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. She expresses her thoughts that we as people and as a culture need to stop thinking that everybody who disagrees with us is our enemy and wonders why people cannot just be civil and decent to each other.
Femke feels like an average woman with a forward thinking outlook on life, we see that she is smart, albeit a little bit too addicted to her phone and reading through hate comments, and we feel relatable to her (more so if you’re a writer because the writer’s block that she is going through during the film’s almost entirety is scarily relatable.)
Her addiction to reading the hate comments begins to take a dark turn when she discovers that her loud and irritating next-door neighbour has written a comment about her, and she begins to realise that she takes an immense thrill in taking her revenge on those who thought they were safe behind their screens.
This film makes us question our own morals, and we begin to ask ourselves questions about how we react to online hate. If given the chance, would any of us take revenge if we found out the true identity of those who have sent us death threats? This film heavily pushes us to wonder, if we see ourselves in this woman who is a modern thinker and independent speaker, do we relate to her even on the darker levels?
The film is reasonably fast paced, we are introduced to our main characters and their motives very fast into the film, and throughout they begin to develop in very realistic and grounded ways. Despite the fact that the film is a bit too short for my liking, especially for a thriller, it still manages to remain satirical, very tongue-in-cheek with enough humorous moments without taking away from its darker themes. Director Ivo van Aart does a marvellous job to make this film feel very in-your-face, with wonderful centre shots and use of setting up its characters, with an almost perfect voiceover juxtaposition during a gun chase sequence during the third act of the film.
Verdict
Despite its short length, what we have here is a fun and contained horror more than worth the watch. It is beautifully directed, with very impressive acting on all parts and an incredible theme about freedom of speech, the good vs evil nature within people… plus a bit of a middle finger to every teacher who ever did you wrong by not letting you swear in class.
Directed by Ivo van Aart, The Columnist stars Katja Herbers and Bram van der Kelen.
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