Cam (2018)

directed by Daniel Goldhaber
USA
94 minutes
4.5 stars out of 5
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Because of its subject matter, I was afraid Cam was going to be another preachy piece about how selfie-obsessed and vapid millennial women are. I had some hopes for it, but I honestly didn't expect it to be as good as it was. Instead of lamenting how girls are always glued to their phones, Cam emphasizes that camwork is work, and focuses on the fact that girls in the industry can never be "off"; that it's incredibly taxing having to be able to instantly put on a smile and look perky the second you're in front of a screen. I appreciated that this didn't fall into the hole of portraying camgirls as bimbos with no "real" job.

It helps a lot that Madeline Brewer is REALLY good. I think that when an actor manages to not only play their character, but also play a character who's playing a character, it's a mark of significant talent. And Brewer does this three times. She plays her character, and then she plays the online persona of her character, and then she plays the weird, unsettling entity that takes over her online persona. She's not only great at acting, she's great at acting like somebody who is acting.

This is a double whopper of a film; it's good as a mystery and a portrayal of an occupation that usually gets stereotyped and looked down upon, but it's also great as a horror film. This isn't like all the other movies where a demon invades the internet who is researchable, who has "rules" for how it possesses victims, who can be understood even though it's diabolical and wrong. Had Cam paused midway to explain itself, had the main character been able to get help from somebody who knew the ins and outs of what was happening, the film would still probably have been good, but it would have been less frightening. 

The main character is alone, and the entity further isolates her by making her seem crazy, using her face and identity- her two central aspects as a camgirl- against her. And she can't seek out others who have had the same experience because they are all dead. It's truly isolating, and Madeline Brewer doesn't understate the terror of it in her performance.

The other thing that makes this film great is its very impressive attention to details. Not Chekhov's Guns; not things that are plot-relevant, just small, minor scraps that make it look like a real world. Brand names in the background, shabby clothes, typical things like that, but also more intricate, fleeting elements: We see the main character buy an expensive couch early on in the film, and later she sits on a sofa that still has plastic wrapping on it. The profile picture of one of her regulars is referenced in a later meeting with him. It has a vague Alice in Wonderland theme that, for once, doesn't feel hackneyed. All of this leads me to believe that this was an attentively-made film with lots of effort from everyone involved. Somehow this got into my #2-of-the-year spot.