Zoey Deutch Is Obsessed With Internet Fame In Hulu’s Not Okay
In today’s society, Internet notoriety is something to aspire to — Danni Sanders sure does.
The protagonist of Hulu’s film Not Okay, played by Zoey Deutch, is an aspiring writer with not a lot going for her. She’s got no real friends, no romantic prospects, no followers, and nothing to say in her writing. That is until she fakes a trip to a writers retreat in Paris on her Instagram to impress her work crush Colin, a bleach blonde stoner YouTuber played by Dylan O’Brien. While she lounges around in Brooklyn with her guinea pig, she strategically edits and posts fake photos of her exciting trip to Paris. But when a terrorist attack strikes the City of Lights, Danni finds herself in a lie bigger than she could’ve imagined as a “survivor” of the attack. Instead of backtracking on her initial lie, she dives even deeper, using the incident as a way to go further in her writing career and get the Internet fame she’s always wanted. To help supplement her lies, she joins a support group for survivors and co-opts the voice of Rowan, who is both a young woman of color and a real trauma survivor (Mia Isaac). But it’s only a matter of time before the facade cracks and, as this film promises, there is no redemption for what Danni has done.
What truly makes Not Okay stand apart is its dedication to not making this a redemptive story for Danni. She is a white woman with a victim complex, but does she even learn anything from the mess she made? Not really, it seems. But it is unexpected and refreshing to see from Rowan’s perspective as she takes back her power and speaks her truth about the effect it has on her to have a white woman try to steal her experience and her voice and use it for her own gain.
Bold, uncomfortable, and self-aware, Not Okay can be polarizing in its satirical, yet dramatic, portrayal of the social media generation and the goal to make a name for yourself online at any cost. Writer and director Quinn Shephard truly knows her audience and inserts Internet Easter eggs into the film with an expert eye. Deutch has a gift for playing complicated women and somehow makes the attention-obsessed Danni both terrible and relatable at the same time. Isaac is a powerhouse in her second film role, while O’Brien takes on a role like we’ve never seen him in before.
Not Okay makes its Hulu debut on July 29.
