CAM (2018)

Studio:       Blumhouse/Netflix
Director:    Daniel Goldhaber
Writer:       Isa Mazzei
Producer:  Isabelle Link-Levy, Adam Hendricks, John Lang, Greg Gilreath
Stars:     Madeline Brewer, Patch Darragh, Melora Walters, Devin Druid, Imani Hakim, Michael Dempsey, Flora Diaz, Samantha Robinson, Jessica Parker Kennedy, Quei Tann

Review Score:

---

Summary:

A camgirl finds her personal life spiraling scarily after a doppelganger mysteriously assumes her online identity.

---

Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Alice Ackerman, who works as a camgirl on freegirls.live under the name Lola, performs an online show for her regular followers. With help from devoted fan Tinker, whose real name is Arnold, Alice stages a fake suicide to shock viewers in an effort to climb the site’s popularity ranking. After the show, Alice has a private video chat with Barney, one of the site’s whales who influences camgirl popularity.

Alice visits her hairstylist mother Lynne and younger brother Jordan at Lynne’s salon. Alice then prepares for a nonsexual date with another devoted fan.

While buying supplies at a discount store for Jordan’s upcoming birthday party, Alice runs into her friend Katie, who is ashamed of her job at the store. From another aisle, Alice sees she is being stared at by Tinker, who suddenly hurries outside. Alarmed by the encounter, Alice begins declining repeated private chat requests from Tinker.

Fellow camgirl Fox suggests that despite the physical risks, Alice should consider doing a vibratron show if she wants to unseat Baby, the site’s most popular performer. Alice studies Baby’s latest performance before arranging an in-person meeting with Barney for a later date.

Alice finally breaks into the top 50 by eating steak in lingerie during her next show. However, Alice immediately drops in popularity when rival camgirl Princess poaches her visitors.

Tinker finally manages to reach Alice by calling her emergency phone line. Alice’s suspicion that Tinker might be a stalker increases when she discovers he moved nearby for a job.

Alice goes to the Camgirl Clubhouse to perform the joint vibratron show with Fox. While there, Alice has a brief run-in with Princess.

Alice wakes the following morning to discover she is locked out of her freegirls.live account and a doppelganger is inexplicably performing as Lola. Alice calls Customer Support, who assures Alice that the duplicate’s performance is live while claiming her request for an account deactivation must be elevated. After being repeatedly blocked by other attempts, Alice logs into Lola’s performance under the username Teapot to confirm that the stream is live.

Initially presuming Princess manipulated her account somehow, Alice shows the imposter’s stream to Fox, who echoes Alice’s confusion. Alice calls back Customer Support to discover her access code is now invalid.

Alice drops off Jordan’s birthday gift at Lynne’s salon. Tinker unexpectedly shows up with flowers. Before successfully dismissing him, Alice learns that the Lola double deepened her stalker issue by telling Tinker she loves him.

Alice is unable to make a new performer account because her id is already on file. Alice continues monitoring Lola’s stream.

At the birthday party, one of Jordan’s friends reveals in front of everyone that Alice is a camgirl. Katie snickers. With her mother showing disappointment, Alice leaves in shame.

Alice watches another Lola performance. Alice pays money to force Lola to spank and then flog herself. Determined to promote more physical pain against Lola, Alice purchases another $1000 of online tokens to use on the website. Lola’s performance culminates in a staged suicide by gunshot. Alice cries as Lola’s popularity rank breaks into the top 20.

Alice contacts the police about her stolen identity. However, Officer Reynolds and Officer Lee only insult Alice before leaving without taking action.

Alice discovers that Lola is mimicking previous Baby performances as well as preparing for a joint show with Baby.

Alice arranges to meet Barney at a Mexican restaurant where she successfully tricks him into revealing personally identifying information about Baby. While Alice is in the bathroom, Barney comes to believe Alice is an imposter scamming him when he sees Lola is online at the same time. Barney tries assaulting Alice, but she manages to get away.

Alice’s research reveals that Baby’s real name is Hannah Darin, but she died in 2014. Alice watches in frightened disbelief as Lola and Baby perform a joint show inside Alice’s house. After Lola publicly identifies her brother Jordan, Alice smashes her laptop in a rage.

Alice finds her mother’s house vandalized with insulting graffiti. Jordan refuses to speak to Alice. Although Lynne compliments Lola’s performances, Alice insists that the camgirl is not really her, creating more frustration between Lynne and Alice about Alice taking responsibility for her life.

Using a library computer, Alice researches Baby’s past joint shows. Alice discovers that the one thing all of Baby’s performing partners have in common is Tinker as a top friend.

Alice tracks down Tinker at a local motel. After Alice angrily explains the situation, Tinker promises to help Alice by identifying and shutting down her doppelganger.

Tinker and Alice fall asleep waiting for Lola’s next show to begin. Alice wakes to find Tinker masturbating in the bathroom to a private video chat with Lola.

Alice uses a stun gun to tase Tinker while demanding to know what he did. Tinker insists that he does not know exactly what is happening or how it works, but he knew Alice was going to be copied like the other girls. Alice realizes that Tinker, knowing she would be copied, moved closer to Alice so he could be available to be her supposed savior.

Alice confronts her doppelganger over Tinker’s video chat. However, Lola does not recognize Alice’s face.

Alice returns home, sets up her webcam, and interrupts Lola’s live show for a private video chat. Alice and Lola put themselves in identical positions in their mirrored locations. Alice convinces Lola to broadcast their streams side by side.

Alice and the doppelganger agree to play a game of Monkey See, Monkey Do so their fans can determine who is the best Lola. Lola wins the first round and forces Alice to strip.

For the second round, Alice repeatedly bashes her face on her desk to prove that nothing happens to Lola when she repeats the action. The fans vote Alice the winner for breaking her nose, even though they presume the gore to be staged. For her prize, Alice demands that Lola return her account password, which Lola does. As tips continue coming in, Alice finally logs back in to the website and deletes the Lola account.

After Alice’s nose mostly heals, Lynne helps Alice apply makeup to her bruised face. Wearing a wig, Alice creates the new camgirl identity EveBot using a fake id for Emily Ramsay.

---

Review:

It takes only six minutes for “Cam” to sink its first hook into your psyche.  Alice, performing as a camgirl named Lola, teases for tips from her regular bevy of online admirers.  The bigger the donation, the better the show, she winks.  An anonymous avatar suddenly changes the chat room’s tone by making an unexpected request.  He wants Alice to replace her false phallus with a knife.  Extensive insults and an increasing stream of digital cash provoke Alice to defiantly pick up the blade.  With the weapon against her throat, Alice proposes a dare.

What happens next, and immediately thereafter, sets a suitably askew stage for the 85 maddening minutes that follow.  It’s not unlike Gene Wilder somersaulting after losing his grip on Willy Wonka’s cane.  From that moment forward, nothing can be seen as a certainty.  The film forms its fantasy around curiosity for what is to come, and disbelief over what has already happened.

Through this intriguing opening, which doubles as the first of many masterful moves of mood-making, “Cam” stocks its debit card with plentiful good faith to get it through requisite exposition.  An early drag can be felt as all of the pieces and players are gradually put on the board.  Yet the lingering effect of that initial shock drapes an uncomfortable pall over Alice’s average life to suggest something insidious lies ahead.

That something is a doppelganger.  Alice rises one morning to find herself inexplicably locked out of her camgirl account.  More inexplicably, an exact duplicate of Alice is performing in her place, and the double’s show is definitely live.  With a strange stalker seemingly lurking around her daily routine too, Alice’s figurative identity crisis now takes tangible form as a “Twilight Zone” nightmare she cannot wake up from.

“Cam” predominantly features only one woman often in the same relatively sparse room.  That’s usually permission for focus to wander to a clock, phone, or different distraction as the setup of a single person in a single location grows stale.

Except Daniel Garber’s finger-snap editing tricks attention spans into staying on the screen by constantly cutting to chat windows, visitor counts, or other inserts that pump up the pace.  Plotting definitively beats the film’s pulse.  But carefully considered scene assembly co-creates rhythm with the fiction, resulting in a hypnotic visual style to echo the mesmeric mystery.

Naturally, no movie centered on one woman would work without a complex character and a captivating actress to construct her.  As Alice, Madeline Brewer of “The Handmaid’s Tale” shapes an incredibly cunning and charismatic personality bearing nearly none of the traditional trappings associated with a cardboard stereotype forced into any of her positions.

Alice’s self-value drops low, but her self-sufficiency remains high.  From calling Customer Service to consulting a friend to creating new logins, no stone stays unturned when Alice works to logically unravel her situation.  Neither hopeless nor helpless, Alice’s skillfully subtle manipulation of a man who unknowingly reveals personally identifying information about someone else comes straight from a master spy’s playbook.  Alice’s fierce resilience and resourcefulness makes it easy to burn white-hot with frustrated empathy as an invested viewer.  Seeing Alice reach the end of her tumultuous tunnel becomes crucial to relieving your own internal tension.

Some viewers will have issues with what is and isn’t ultimately revealed.  If you’re usually left unsatisfied when an explanatory bow doesn’t tie up loose ends, “Cam” may confound you with its conclusion.

You’re equally bound for disappointment if the backdrop of Alice’s profession grooms expectations for sensationalized sexuality.  “Cam’s” cerebral thrills are not centered on titillation.  “Cam” is a clever, creepy, completely compelling character deconstruction and reconstruction nestled inside an enigmatically eerie horror story.

The movie casts such an unbreakable spell with its David Lynch-like dreamscape, an engaged imagination can miss plentiful parallels about false faces, self-reflection, and lifestyle redirection.  By layering a sickly current of unease beneath a naturalistic depiction of stagnant suburbia, the unusual texture terrifically complements the deceptive duality theme.  Marking a massively impressive first feature from director Daniel Goldhaber and writer Isa Mazzei, and employing excellent performances from supporting players as well as its centerpiece star, “Cam” is without question one of the year’s top thrillers.

Review Score:  95

---