'Not Okay' review: Smart satire about social media's power

WHAT IT'S ABOUT Zoey Deutch ("The Politician") stars in this sharp satirical comedy as Danni, a woman who wants nothing more than to be recognized on the internet. She's a rich scion working as a photo editor for a trendy New York magazine, toiling in obscurity when it comes to social clout.

All that changes when a little lie transforms into a big one: Danni pretends to have attended a writer's retreat in Paris, complete with Photoshopped pictures in front of the Eiffel Tower and a fake website, in order to impress a poseur co-worker named Colin (Dylan O'Brien).

But when terrorists attack the city while she's supposedly there, and the messages of support and concern come pouring in, Danni finds herself making the decidedly wrong choice.

She goes with the fiction, joins a support group and writes an article about her supposed experience that goes viral, complete with a hashtag. Finally, her dreams have come true: She's a true internet celebrity. Most horrifically of all, Danni strikes up a friendship with school shooting survivor Rowan (Mia Isaac) based on the falsehood of having also endured a trauma.

"Not Okay" is written and directed by Quinn Shephard (a film and TV veteran with credits including "Hostages" on CBS).

MY SAY This is a movie with the courage of its convictions, one that's unafraid to depict an unlikable, vain protagonist and to maintain that posture without making excuses for her. 

That's not to suggest Shephard and Deutch offer no way into understanding Danni, or even empathizing with her. She is the pinnacle of everything confused and wrong about a value system determined by shares, likes and followers.

It's easy to believe she would take these extreme steps to be noticed, to get that jolt of dopamine with every last click.

There's no room for ethics when you're being offered influencer "collabs" at haute, trendy parties, or finally getting noticed by Colin, the Frankenstein's Monster of internet creations, who seems to exist solely for Instagram reels, Snapchats and the like.

"Not Okay" is resolute in the notion that these people represent everything that's misguided and wrong about the social media age. As Danni builds trust with Rowan, who has become a nationally known anti-gun violence activist while still remaining deeply traumatized by what she actually went through, the movie steps into grotesque horror picture territory.

Shephard never lessens her resolve as her screenplay allows for this pathological manipulation to spiral further out of control. Even when Danni gradually recognizes the extent to which she has really messed things up, her defense mechanisms seem to have come right out of the online mea culpa playbook.

Deutch shows brief flashes of guilt, and the movie offers the recurring image of a faceless hooded being as an avatar for this, but she never compromises. The star shows us that as bad as things might get for Danni, it'd be even worse to not be noticed at all.

BOTTOM LINE This is a smart satire that gets at something fundamental about how the omnipotence of social media has impacted our values.