Film Review: Cam (2018)
Just as HBO changed the paradigm of television production at the start of this century and laid the foundations for television’s ‘golden age,’ so today Netflix is changing the paradigm of film production. This can be attributed primarily to the endeavour to make its catalogue of films not only different from those available to viewers of terrestrial and cable television, but also to make the films as diverse and unusual as possible. A tendency to experiment, however, does not always guarantee success and quality, and a fresh example of this is Cam, which can be considered not quite the best, but in any case, one of the most unusual horror films of 2018.
The ‘Cam’ in the title is an abbreviation for ‘web camera,’ but also for ‘cam girl,’ or what today implies a sex worker specialising in striptease and other services provided over the internet. The protagonist is Alice (Madeline Brewer), a young woman who works in this profession under the stage name Lola and is so good at it that she has become something of a star, or at least thinks she soon will be. In her attempt to secure the greatest viewership and popularity, she is prepared to perform content ‘bolder’ than other models, often crossing the line of good taste or common sense.
However, shortly after approaching her goal and beginning to break into the ‘cam’ elite, her world is suddenly turned upside down. First, she discovers she can no longer log into her cam website, allegedly because someone managed to hack her account, and then she finds that someone under her name has started performing even more depraved cam shows. Alice is further confused by the frightening detail that the alternative Lola looks like her twin sister, just as the online antics of her evil doppelgänger begin to affect her real offline life and threaten her relationship with her family. Alice is therefore forced to use all her ingenuity and talents to confront her mysterious tormentor.
One thing that absolutely cannot be faulted in this film is a lack of authenticity. The screenplay was written by Isa Mazzei, a former cam girl, and the direction is by Daniel Goldhaber, who during her previous career directed several pornographic videos for her. Mazzei, at least according to interviews she gave before the premiere, found inspiration in her own experiences related to the unauthorised distribution of videos of her cam shows on the internet, as well as the frustrating and predictably futile attempts to stop this activity through an official police report.
Despite all this, Cam stands out for its rather unusual benevolence towards the sex industry by Hollywood standards, especially towards those aspects that take bread out of the mouth of the American dream factory. The protagonist is portrayed neither as a dumb bimbo nor as a helpless victim, and the screenplay manages – in today’s neo-puritanical SJW era where this is increasingly hard to imagine – to convey sex-positive feminism, notably through the character of the protagonist’s mother (played by Mellora Walters, a veteran of Anderson’s Magnolia and probably the most recognisable name in front of the camera) who reveals an unusual understanding of her daughter’s profession.
This heretical detail was enough for critics to find some form of social engagement in Cam, or to understand it as a kind of allegorical condemnation of modern trends where people live their lives on the internet, creating their false doubles who, sooner or later, try to remove the real original.
Cam is indeed an interesting film, but an unusual theme and an unusual stance towards a contemporary social phenomenon are not enough to make it a quality one. For that, it would have needed a much more rounded and coherent screenplay, which wouldn’t have spent its fascinating premise on cheap horror ‘schtick.’ Even the somewhat unconventional ending, which doesn’t offer viewers a neat explanation about the nature of the problem the protagonist faced, seems more like a result of a lack of inspiration than an attempt to be ‘different from others.’ In fact, it’s hard to shake the impression that Mazzei intended to make a deadly serious thriller about things that happened either to her or her colleagues, but ultimately, after fruitlessly knocking on the doors of Hollywood offices, decided to take the path of least resistance and deliver a much more conventional product, with the horror plot feeling tacked on afterwards.
Cam is at its best in the first half, when it provides a rather interesting and convincing portrayal of the world of ‘camming,’ and precisely because of this, the second half feels disappointingly like it sinks into cheap clichés. The overall impression is somewhat salvaged primarily by Madeline Brewer (best known for her role as Janine in the television series The Handmaid’s Tale), who invests exceptional energy to make a not-so-well-written character convincing. But, as in many similar cases, talent in front of the camera cannot always compensate for a lack of experience behind it.
RATING: 4/10 (+)
(Note: The text in the original Croatian version is available here.)
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