Not Okay: Me Neither

So obviously Dylan O’brien is my fave part of this movie. #teenwolfforever. “Collin, you’re from Maine…. Okay, cool Harper.” best line, hands down.

Before I actually talk about this movie I'll just say, his character was so funny. The culture vulture horribleness of him was so annoying he's great.

But overall I really enjoyed this film. I waited to watch it for a while, since those tiktoks with Dylan being blonde surfaced, and I wasn’t disappointed. It was a mainly female-ran story and I appreciated that. The boss at the magazine, the protagonist Danni, the sort-of antagonist Harper (who arguably could be the hero, depending how much you hated the protagonist lol), and even the mom had way more to say to Danni than her father. All women, no matter the likability. And the director/writer was a woman as well. The beginning disclaimer, “ Warning: This movie contains an unlikeable female protagonist” made me crack up. Because the entire female staff already knew, all of the reviews would be “ugh I hate Danni, she’s so annoying, girls are so stupid blah blah,” unless they said that. This way they beat you to it. Like, yes we know she’s unlikeable. What else you got? Not everyone is likable. Just listen to the story and stop focusing on how you can shit on her. She fucked up. Here’s how it played out. That’s the point.

This story was really modern, and current with the way social media affects people’s lives, and how it can go so wrong. It’s wonderful and everyone’s nice until the second you do something wrong, and suddenly you’re all alone, and no one ever knew you and if it can be proved that they did, in fact, know you, then they definitely always knew something was up with you and you were always a shady bitch… so it seems like maybe social media isn’t the be-all-end-all to the purpose of life…. Weird.

The way people reacted to Danni’s demise was hilarious, too. All the fake people checking in is so exactly how it goes, like someone from Danni’s high school chemistry class texted her when everyone realized she was “near the attacks”. Everyone wants to be involved. And the stalking people to see what they’re up to or hanging out without you, like when she had to check Collin’s story to see why he wasn’t texting her back. They just really displayed an accurate way of how people really use social media, which sometimes is rare, because movies are often made by grown-ups who try to relate to teens. That was not the case in “Not Okay”.

I also loved getting wrapped up in Danni’s lies and thinking like, yes this is a funnymovie and she’s dumb sometimes, but also she’s somehow traumatizing herself, like seeing visions of the rumored bomber, even though she wasn’t really there. She really is just in a bunch of turmoil, by her own hand. The film contrasts her fake/confusing internal struggle with the actual trauma from Rowan, a survivor of a school shooting, and you remember like, oh shit, no this trauma is real. like not even just in the movie. That shit’s real. People truly have these repercussions of terrorism, children in shootings, bombers attacking whole cities, and Danni wants to be a victim so bad… But you also kind of feel bad, because it wasn’t her original intention, she just wanted to fake a trip to Paris, and now she’s down the rabbit hole and is trying, with at times a minimal amount of effort, to really understand the gravity of the situation she could have been in. But at the end of the day, she’s enjoying the attention and doesn’t want to do much of the work... It’s just a mess.

Something I thought was a little weird was the friendship of Rowan being sooo much younger than Danni. I think Danni was like 28 and Rowan was in maybe 10th grade. And I get it’s supposed to be a big sister kind of thing, because of Rowan’s sister, but people of all ages have been through school shootings, so I just think she didn’t need to be sooo young. It’s a difficult friendship to maintain, which takes away the weight of what they actually could have lost from each other due to Danni’s lie and betrayal…. Also how realistic is it that a 15 year old would march into a big magazine company’s building and scream in anger at a 30 year old… I certainly wouldn’t have. But maybe that’s just due to her experiences and having to mature quickly.

Rowan was a really devastating character. She just couldn’t win. So much hurt. And I found myself really feeling for her character… I think I went, “mmm.” a number of times. So. Yeah, I’m pretty much an empath.

Okay, also, Danni did a terrible job lying. LOL like I’m sorry - how dumb are you to not do literally any research at all? On Paris, on creating your own story of what happened at the attacks you claimed to be at, and what someone going through this trauma would feel… To not act like sad at all. Lmfao. The ballsiest, dumbest choice. She’s just partying all the time w people, accepting the free stuff, thinking it’s fun. And this is the entire point of the story - she’s unaware of her actions and consequences, literally any social awareness, etc. But Jesus CHROIST, didn’t think any lf this through lollll.

Also, the ending was weirdly abrupt. She just walks out of the auditorium at the end, and there’s no anything. I don’t know, it wasn’t terrible, it just felt like nothing happened or ended. There was no actual activism to fix anything, she just cried and then left. And I don’t know what else I wanted, but it did not satisfy me… Maybe that’s a lesson too? Not everything gets wrapped up nicely? Or has a good perfect end? Idk.

ps: how the fuck did her nails stay that great for that long. like you don't have to get a fill or a new set? Unrealistic!!! This was easily over the span of at least a month?? Same nails the whole time. Wild.