Ingrid Goes West
Mongrel Media | Release Date: August 11, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
71
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 39 Critic Reviews
Positive:
34
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
The PlaylistGregory EllwoodJan 22, 2017
The movie lives and dies, however, on Ingrid herself and, remarkably, Plaza finds a way for you to root for her even when she crosses line after line after line. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperAug 17, 2017
Aubrey Plaza is a sensation as Ingrid, who is alternately charming and sad and pathetic and absolutely insane. Plaza has a unique and magnetic screen presence that creates great empathy, even when she’s portraying a mostly off-putting character. Read full review
88
RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyAug 11, 2017
The film is very smart, most of all because it resists the urge to devolve into a sentimental redemption narrative. This is a daring comedy with a very sharp bite. Read full review
80
EmpireOlly RichardsNov 13, 2017
A very smart take on the stalker movie, which resists easy laughs for harder truths, and might make you think twice the next time you’re lining up a photo for social media. Read full review
80
Total FilmJames MottramNov 13, 2017
A superb satirical swipe at the worst excesses of the social media generation. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzAug 24, 2017
Aubrey Plaza is brilliant in Ingrid goes West, Matt Spicer’s smart, satirical and sometimes scathing takedown of the vapidity social media sometimes injects into life. Read full review
80
IGNAlex WelchAug 10, 2017
The film manages to look at its characters with empathy and understanding, while simultaneously refusing to endorse their actions. And because of that, Matt Spicer’s directorial debut proves to be one of the more successful takes on the social media generation to hit the silver screen. Read full review
80
TheWrapElizabeth WeitzmanAug 10, 2017
Plaza deftly keeps us off balance throughout, daring us to relate to Ingrid even as we’re repelled by her. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesJen YamatoAug 10, 2017
Ingrid might be a lying, manipulative stalker, but Plaza also lets us see her humanity, engendering a crucial empathy for the desperation that drives her. Read full review
80
TheWrapSteve PondJan 22, 2017
Spicer has a deft touch with his story, and his cast marvelously fleshes out a bunch of people we care about even though, in most cases, we know we probably shouldn’t. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleJosh KupeckiAug 16, 2017
Farmers’ market jokes and “desert vibes” hashtags aside, Ingrid Goes West cuts to the quick, ultimately revealing a toxic, yet oh-so-appealing demeanor that has come to define our current existence. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliAug 24, 2017
Ingrid Goes West is part comedy, part tragedy, part horror/thriller, and part social commentary. Although it is primarily satirical, director/co-writer Matt Spicer never loses sight of the characters. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesMoira MacdonaldAug 23, 2017
Director Matt Spicer...is dealing with some fairly obvious themes; i.e. everything on social media isn’t what it seems; living your life online isn’t necessarily a good idea. But he finds much wit in the characters, and in the wicked fun the actors are having. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreAug 23, 2017
A wickedly on-target cautionary tale about whom we let “influence” us and just how little is to be gained by looking “West,” much less going there. Read full review
75
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonAug 23, 2017
The movie is an inventive and shrewd satire of the way social media can be used to describe and distort the lives of users. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorAug 17, 2017
Much to an audience's discomfort, Ingrid's desperation to bond with the phony Taylor soon breaks the bounds of sanity – until the film rebukes her warped world view with a highly moral ending. The critique is clever but the limit is the one so common in satire: it's hard to care about the fate of a character this exaggerated. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleAug 16, 2017
An ideal vehicle for Aubrey Plaza, in that it taps into everything we know she can do and challenges her to do other things that she hasn’t done before. Read full review
75
New York PostSara StewartAug 10, 2017
Its double-barrel satire is aimed both at those who curate their lives through merrily sun-dappled photos, and their followers, who drink it in as reality. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversAug 10, 2017
A pitch-black comedy that dances around its central theme without ever facing it head on. But oh, the demented, delicious mischief it kicks up. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattAug 10, 2017
A clever, corrosive little trick of a movie, a neon candy heart dipped in asbestos. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubKatie RifeAug 9, 2017
The biggest selling point of Ingrid Goes West is its screenplay, which is full of deadpan comic flourishes. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChristopher GrayAug 5, 2017
Ingrid Goes West recalls Fear and Single White Female — two films right in the sweet spot of mid-'90s nostalgia that Ingrid's peers love to recall — but is more indebted to Alexander Payne's social comedies, which dwell in the backwash of the American dream. Read full review
70
SlateHeather SchwedelAug 17, 2017
Though not a direct adaptation of "The Talented Mr. Ripley," the movie plays like a 2017 version of the psychological thriller, and not since "Clueless" took on Emma has a film so cleverly updated a pre-existing plot for the mores of the present day. Read full review
70
We Got This CoveredMatt DonatoAug 10, 2017
Ingrid Goes West is the kind of social media satire we need, even if a tone-shifting second act drives focus from mental health to less interesting criminal goofiness. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonAug 10, 2017
Ms. Plaza delivers a wide-ranging, nuanced and demanding performance as a mad woman, whose attic is the cellphone. Read full review
70
Village VoiceBilge EbiriAug 9, 2017
It is entertaining, and often touching, even if it pulls back right when it should be going totally nuts. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Emily YoshidaAug 7, 2017
Director Matt Spicer’s Sundance breakout is a friend-crush tale as old as time, modeled almost to a T on "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (without the murder). As such, your mileage will vary depending on whether or not you’ve ever been to Café Gratitude and how much of a tolerance you have for Aubrey Plaza. Read full review
70
ScreenCrushMatt SingerJan 22, 2017
The film works effectively on its own terms as a new variation on a timeless subgenre, and as a warning to people who share their lives freely online. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter DebrugeJan 22, 2017
A semi-ironic, yet still-empathetic “Single White Female” for the Facebook generation, Spicer’s squirm-inducing directorial debut understands both the pleasures and frustrations of judging one’s worth via virtual connections. Read full review
70
Screen DailyDavid D'ArcyJan 22, 2017
If you’re looking for more than laughs, this comedy aspiring to drama takes you only so far. Read full review
67
ConsequenceClint WorthingtonAug 7, 2017
While there’s something to Ingrid Goes West and its indictment of insufferable L.A. millennial culture and social media’s dangers, Spicer’s targets are too bluntly specific to make the sort of nuanced argument that the film aims to attempt. Read full review
67
The Film StageJordan RaupJan 22, 2017
In his directorial debut, Matt Spicer gets right what so many other films commenting on today’s technology obsession fail to capture: the aesthetic appeal of the technology. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyAug 24, 2017
Ingrid Goes West doesn’t offer Plaza a breakout role so much as a dig-deeper role. There’s a bravery to her performance that recalls De Niro as Pupkin. Actors really, really like to be liked — and understood. Ingrid is intensely unlikable — and opaque. Read full review
63
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanAug 24, 2017
Ingrid Goes West doesn’t quite go south, but in diving headfirst into the swamp of Internet addiction, its vision gets a little murky. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfAug 11, 2017
For all its timeliness, the movie works best when it’s echoing the 15-year-old The Rules of Attraction, upping the vapidity of Ingrid’s prey. Read full review
60
The New York TimesBen KenigsbergAug 10, 2017
Ingrid Goes West comes close to saying something sharp about how social media promotes envy and the illusion of connectivity, but when a comedy chooses such an obvious target, it should have the courtesy to aim from an oblique angle. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterLeslie FelperinFeb 1, 2017
Even though this feature debut for director Matt Spicer, who co-wrote the script with David Branson Smith, is sort of all over the place, it’s still often sharply amusing, crisply assembled and features game, broad-brushstroke performances from leads Aubrey Plaza and Elizabeth Olsen. Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedAug 15, 2017
It’s a forgettable film, but what it says about the debilitating effect of technological abuse is sickening enough to make you think twice about upgrading your smartphone. Read full review
50
IndieWireDavid EhrlichJan 28, 2017
Ingrid Goes West is colorful and flippant enough that it can survive a lot of its more senseless developments, but the movie never digs beneath the most obvious layers of its L.A. stereotypes. Read full review
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