I like The Talented Mr. Ripley just enough to make me wonder if there’s something wrong with me, as the lead character is a complete sociopath.  I like the first cinematic incarnation of Patricia Highsmith’s character, in 1960’s Purple Noon, almost as much, while acknowledging that film is better than the 90’s version.

I went into 2022’s Influencer with zero expectations and not even the slightest idea what it was about.  Turns out it is roughly a new take on the Highsmith character with some new spins to it, include a gender switch.

Emily Tennant plays an influencer who we first see posting photos and videos from what appears to be an extremely high-end resort in Thailand.  It also has hardly any guests.  She seems to be very lonely.  In voiceover, we hear in her voice the texts of her missives, talking all about things like how great the people are that she’s met there.  From what we’re shown, however, she hasn’t had a significant conversation with anybody.

One night in the resort bar, Cassandra Naud appears to save Tennant from a middle-aged boor (Paul Spurrier).  In the resulting conversation between the two women, we learn Tennant was supposed to be there with her long-term boyfriend (Rory J. Saper), except he bailed on her. 

Naud convinces Tennant to hop on the back of her motorcycle and together they go see the real Thailand, the areas the tourists don’t usually visit.  Then Tennant’s passport is stolen and she finds herself at the mercy of Naud’s hospitality.  Soon, the influencer is spending the night at the other’s woman’s huge glass house in the jungle.  On a table in the entryway is a copy of Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad.  Written inside the cover is a woman’s name I don’t believe we ever hear. Hmmm…might these be hints of something nefarious?

Already, I had some problems with the set-up, as Tennant seems determined not to ask any questions.  Even before her passport goes walkies, I would have had some questions for Naud.  Things like, what’s your backstory?  What do you do for a living?  And, at this point in the film, exactly how did you come to have an ultra-modern house worthy of being featured in Architecture Digest?

Instead, she happily tags along with the mysterious woman as they take a boat out to some allegedly amazing island nobody ever visits.  As they sit around a fire on the beach of that island that night, Naud casually mentions there’s no shipping lanes running past this locale.  Seems like an odd thing to bring up in conversation. Needless to say, there’s no cell service. 

Astonishingly, Tennant seems to think her mysterious benefactor is joking when she informs her she is going to wake up alone the next morning after Naud leaves with the boat.  Naud even goes through the events Tennant will be doomed to experience, things that happened to the previous, similar women she left there.  First, she’ll try to find water, but there won’t be any to drink.  Next will be food, which also doesn’t exist on the island.  “You’ll eventually fade into obscurity.  Just like all the other girls.  You’ll just eventually cease to exist.”  Weirdly, I just happen to be listening to the Ladytron song “Cease2Exist” as I write this.

I guess Naud deserves some credit, as she does exactly what she said she would do.  Back on shore, she takes over Tennant’s life, spending her money and even using some terrifying AI technology to continue the other woman’s video blog without anybody noticing the difference.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is the morning where Tennant wakes to discover she has been left to die is when the opening credits are shown—a good half hour into the 90 minute runtime.  Now, that took me completely by surprise.

To say anything else about the plot of Influencer would likely constitute a spoiler, so I will say no more than that.  What I will say, however, is the film, which had such a strong first act, loses its momentum in the second act.  In the end, I was left with the impression this could have been an amazing one-hour piece.  Instead, this is yet another work stretched too thin by having to meet the arbritrarily set, mandatory runtime of one hour and a half hours.

Dir: Kurtis David Harder

Starring Cassandra Naud, Emily Tennant, Rory J. Saper

Watched on Shudder