CAM
Fantasia 2018 Film Festival Review
By Jeff Sanders
I hate to write reviews of a film like CAM. I feel movies like this one work best going in completely blind, so if for some strange reason this is the first review you are reading for this film I recommend that you stop, look up nothing else and just watch it. I recommend this film and feel it mostly succeeds in the commentary that it wants to say. So there’s that.
But for those who may already know, here we go.
Be careful of your actions or you may become a person you don’t want to be is a saying I remember hearing growing up. CAM offers us a quite literal translation of this adage. A pornographic cam girl named Alice (who uses the screen name Lola) wants to ride her way to #1 on her live video girl broadcast. She has a gimmick where she commits suicide on-camera by way of an insider feeding her credits and messaging her disturbed questions. She knowingly plays along until a final gory result. This turns out to be a gag, and although crazy sounding raises her status some. Unfortunately, not enough to raise her to that glorious number 1 spot she so covets. We see Alice break away from this fantasy and return to a normal life where her Mom is a hairdresser and her brother is about to celebrate his 17th birthday. They live in a house and neighborhood that is a notch above poverty in the lower middle-class spectrum. Her life is very normal but very business-oriented. She doesn’t seem to do much anything personal outside of work. Her friends are other cam girls, but they are only work friends. She doesn’t have a boyfriend. The only dates she goes on are with high bidders from her live feed. She keeps all of her appointments and routines straight on a detailed calendar that has been filled for the entire year to come. She wants to reach the top and is willing to change everything to do so. That night, when she goes to log in to her account and start a new live session and move past that dreaded top 50 spot where she is indefinitely stuck, something strange happens. Alice can’t log in to her account. She checks to see what is going on with her channel. She finds a girl who looks identical to her playing on the live feed. When Alice messages this Lola imposter, the doppelganger responds openly to Alice’s demand, “Say orange.” Cam girl Lola looks confused and plays along, she will do what is asked. Lola responds, “Orange.” She is obviously real. Who is this Lola?
CAM is a fairly smart movie. The performance from Madeline Brewer is perfectly played with matter of fact sexuality and young adult sentiment towards family, future, and socio-economics. I never doubted this character was who she presented herself as, and this is what is necessary to make this film about double identities work. Some of the human interaction isn’t quite as grounded, like a scene where cops are called in by Alice that plays plot convenience to the point of laughability. But for the most part, this film has its head on straight. The writing and directing of the film are already receiving praise at the Fantasia Film Festival and it is deserved for the most part. The story was written by a real sex cam worker Isa Mazzei, and the director Daniel Goldhaber. The realistic nature of the cam girl culture combined with the abstract nature of the doppelganger plot, mixed with get rich or die trying angst create a grounded piece that rings truthful in what Alice is and wants to be in the digital age we live in. Some folks are calling this film Lynchian, but I feel like the territory resembles more of a tone like Altman’s 3 WOMEN or IMAGES for millennials. Most people are not sex cam workers, but with Facebook and Instagram certain folks may find themselves relating to Alice and Lola more than they would like to admit.
Some viewers might not have this online persona dilemma, and this might not be a film for them, but for those who spend more time than they would like to admit sending friend requests, retouching selfies and scheduling automated posts all while thinking about their job and culture placement, I think this film will resonate.
Fantasia Film Festival is from July 12th – August 5th
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