The Follower
2020 · 10m · USA
Directed by Stevie Szerlip
Genres: coming-of-age, drama, thriller
Tones: melancholic, provocative, tense
A misunderstood sixteen-year-old entertains the increasingly sinister advances of an internet acquaintance, drifting out of childhood innocence in real time. Danger dressed up as adolescent curiosity.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Subject matter most filmmakers would either sensationalize or sanitize; Szerlip does neither, which is the whole point. Style without moralizing — rare and load-bearing here.
Declining to position the viewer as either parent or voyeur is exactly the harder, more honest cinema this material requires — Eliza Hittman's lyrical drift is the right gravitational pull. Yes.
Larry Clark frankness about a 16-year-old's online-predator drift, refusing to position the viewer as parent or voyeur, is dangerous territory and the lyrical-Hittman lineage is the right anchor. Page summary is brief so I'm trusting the pitch.
Reviews
A stylish and self-assured melange of high and low art.