You know, if there’s one thing I learned from this film, which I already thought was a very important message, is being able to create boundaries between your social media personality or life and your real life because it could get extremely dangerous for you.
Follow Her made its West Coast premiere in SCREAMFEST 2022. But first of all, I just want to go over our cast really quickly. We do have our lead Dani Barker who plays Jess Peters. And we have Luke Cook, who plays the greatest quarterback of all time, and Tom Brady, who’s just a character named Tom Brady.
There’s a lot that goes on between for the character Jess. But then ultimately when she interacts with Tom and his offers and and how genuine they are and their interactions and so on.
But this film is definitely creepy, you gotta keep your eyes peeled because there are a lot of little things you can miss out on, things and people hiding in walls, and all sorta different stuff like that.
Follow Her Movie Explained
The thing about Jess is that Jess is sort of a dominator and she is a social media personality. She is Jess, and sometimes she goes by Barbie; she’s a content creator. And amongst that she is an aspiring actor turned writer. She’s been struggling much like everybody at the beginning of their career, trying to find their one hook so that they can just get going.
With her sort of presence on social media, she has all types of interaction with folks. Creepy interactions and weird interactions that sometimes you got to weigh her pros and cons, and all sorts of different little things like that.
One gig that was extremely unconventional for her, lands her into her being hired to write an ending of a screenplay. When she meets this other screenwriter, who then tells her that they are the two leads in this film and they start to act it out.
With acting it out, things start to get very interesting. The reason why things start to get interesting is because it starts to become a blur between “Is it this real life” or “Is this actually something that we’re filming”. And it gets a little bit dangerous for her and she’s uncertain.
But the money’s good, obviously, it is the opportunity that she’s been waiting for. She’s sort of in a predicament where she’s just not able to automatically just leave, so extremely dangerous, you know?
Jess’ Dilemma
First of all, going back to Dani as Jess, I think she does a fantastic job going through these different characters.
Especially because of her job being a social media personality and going out and using and making money based on other people’s kinks. So that’s why you sort of get that dominatrix thing. People have their kinks, and they want to pay their money for the things they want and that’s what she does.
A lot of these things are because she secretly films them. And that then goes on this social media platform called Live High, where her clients aren’t shown.
Her fans are obsessed with her web series, I mean, to the point that she has stalkers and whatnot because she goes in there, she plays these different characters for these folks, and does what they want to do. They pay the money, and then she’s out.
Until there’s one gig where accidentally the client’s face is revealed, and that basically costs him everything. And they’re like, “Hey, we need you to take this down; this wasn’t a deal.
One, you were filming, and two, you revealed who I was, and now it had cost this client everything.” This now puts her In danger because this person is powerful, and connected
At the same time, this is doing monumental views for her, so the popularity of her stardom is through the roof, which is also lucrative for her. And it gives her the opportunity to be more present, and that’s where she has to kind of battle a lot of pros and cons. Selling herself for the views or maintaining her dignity. And there’s a lot to kind of balance here.
So you got a lot of different kinds of things going on here. Along with this, she’s having nightmares and anxiety. She’s been overly paranoid, there’s been a lot of coincidental events occurring for her. And then, as I said, this is a huge blurb between her real life and her job. For someone who sells fantasies to folks, this is definitely a huge issue for operation here.
Ending Explained
Tom set up a camera to record Jess’s torture while making her sit on a chair in the middle of the home. Terrorized and bound, Jess came to the realization that Tom knew everything she did, even revealing a client’s face without authorization and refusing to remove the video.
Tom used cruel techniques to force Jess to admit her guilt, wearing a menacing mask while he took off her hair extensions.
When Tom finally got access to Jess’s profile and started a live broadcast, she was forced to admit what she had done with the tapes she had made with random people.
Though helpless, Jess obeyed Tom’s commands, but in the process, she was able to release her hands and hurt him. But Jess held back from killing Tom because she knew the camera was rolling and hundreds of her followers were watching the scene.
Even the confused fans hesitated to try to help Jess escape her situation since they couldn’t determine whether the livestream was real or fake.
Overwhelmed and afraid, Jess made the decision to kill Tom. However, Tom disclosed that the entire event had been a part of a movie shoot at that same moment. Members of the crew materialized from the shadows, revealing themselves as Tom’s group, who had been filming Jess the entire time.
Tom gave Jess acclaim for her outstanding performance, but it was clear that the movie was not yet finished because the screenplay called for the character’s death to be the conclusion.
Completely confused, much like her audience, Jess was able to leave the area and call the police for assistance. But because of her poor moral character and her habit of recording people, the authorities turned down her requests. Not even her powerful father, a lawyer, could help her. Desperate and helpless, Jess realized that the movie was still not over because it was still missing its ending.
Fearing that Tom might come back to kill her for his movie, she withdrew to her flat and locked the door. Right afterward, a package with Jess’s jacket—which Tom had returned—arrived.
After learning the truth about Tom, Jess came to find a live-streaming website that looked similar to Live Hive. To her surprise, she discovered films on Tom’s profile that showed her day-to-day activities, including some very personal moments that had been exposed to the public, breaking Jess’s heart.
In the meantime, Tom stayed outside her door while wearing a Joker mask, possibly getting ready to break in and take Jess’s life to wrap up his movie. But Jess saw the website’s potential and realized that she, too, might end up as a director and expose herself, or she could work with Tom to become one of the exposers. Blotting tears from her eyes, Jess got ready to face reality and accept her newfound strength.
Review
The film does have a little Eroticism to it, because of the fetish aspect. But yeah, this film definitely explores the dangers of her job, especially being in front of the camera. So as I said, she has obsessed fans and stalkers.
There’s some comedy to this as well, strangely enough. But it does get entirely creepy, especially in that last act. When Dani and Luke start to work together, things start to just get going in this family, it works, and it works well. And it puts you on the edge of your seats as there’s so much suspense.
Because at the end of the day, you want to see this character Jess, you want to see her get that bit of good luck in her life. You want to see her laying that job.
As she wasn’t able to land the acting job she had to go to the screenwriting job. She ends up acting and she’s doing all the other stuff to try to support herself and you just want to see her have a break here.
When she gets into the opportunity, which seems to have a lot of red flags, you start to think like, OK, what’s gonna happen? And beyond that too, there’s still an umbrella-like danger that’s involved, which you’re still wondering about that unpredictability.
Because Tom knows Jess because of her popularity, he is aware of what had happened, so there are a lot of different kinds of things that got it going.
