Riley’s review published on Letterboxd:
Jesus Christ I only saw this a few months ago (and initially thought it was pretty good) and wow has this soured so hard, how’re you gonna so boldly sell something like this as “important” and “risky” and then just pull every single punch the second you might get into murkier territory. A film that trades literally any of the transgressive or audaciousness of other (much better) works in this genre in favor of 2012 Tumblr certified twitter quotables. I can’t even wrap my mind around how misguided you have to be to make that ending? Like literally how do you make a whole film about how these systems actively suppress and work against any forms of meaningful justice being taken only to take 20 steps back and say “actually no never mind if you just work hard enough and be a #GirlBoss the good cops will ultimately save the day!
Still somehow pretty watchable and works way better if you try think of it as a dark rom-com (Mulligan and Burnham have really great chemistry and I actually like all that middle section!) but every major choice either feels so woefully misguided or just like an SNL skit, Fennell brings energy as a filmmaker but hasn’t the faintest idea of how to let these moments sink in, the fact that the moments following what should be the films most chilling moment are super fun and amusing really just says all you need to know. The good news is at the end of the day, if this left you cold you have entire sub genres that do everything this aims for but don’t pull their punches at every corner! Maybe no more terminally online people making movies for a while.