The Columnist (2020) A Shrewdly Clever Dark Comedy Horror for the Online Age (Review)

I won’t go as far as calling the internet a mistake as it has opened up dialogue, culture and opportunities that never would’ve been available otherwise. We certainly wouldn’t exist without the internet. That being said, the advent of social media has provided ample opportunity to those with the most abhorrent and damaging opinions to voice their inner thoughts with repercussions occurring to only the rarest of cases. Of course, there’s a good side too, but the dark side of social media is constantly drawing awful attention to itself. And it is that very subject matter that Dutch Filmmaker Ivo van Aart looks at in his new film, The Columnist – out on Digital Platforms Tomorrow through Vertigo Films.

The Columnist in question is Femke Boot (Katja Herbers), who, as the title suggests, is a columnist for a Dutch Newspaper only every time she writes her Twitter handle is tagged in the foulest hate-speech and her articles besieged by trolls with the same nasty ambitions. You’d think that her newspaper employers would enact a bit of moderatorship for the sake of their employees’ mental health. Well, at least if this made any attempt to be true to reality – that is not the film that Van Aart is out to make. This is a fantastical exaggeration in which the only way Femke can get enough peace of mind to write her debut novel is to wreak bloody revenge on her many online nemeses. In the background of Femke’s story is a new lover, the loveliest horror writer that ever was, Steven Dood (which translate into Steven Death (Bram Van Der Kelen)), and her teenage daughter, Anna (Claire Porro) who is leading a foul-mouthed free speech campaign at her school.

The Columnist and Alice Lowe’s Prevenge would make the perfect double bill, both are about women who have had enough and take it upon themselves to go on a murderous rampage against those who wronged them – what’s more, both are very funny dark comedies. Where Alice Lowe’s comedy came from the murder scenarios, Van Aart’s largely come from the supporting characters. The B-Plot with Anna wanting to raise funds for people across the world who get arrested for speaking their mind on the internet is both the thematic heart and the source of much of the comedy. The things she puts on banners around the school will get a rise from anyone who had a rotten time at school. Of course, some of the murders are played for laughs too with the bath scene and the playfully scored montage standing out.

You could just look at the Columnist as a funny film, it does more than enough to earn that privilege, however, their comedy is more important than that. With such a timely and divisive subject matter as people taking advantage of online anonymity, if this was presented without a sense of humour it’d come off as dry, combative and difficult to watch – somewhere along the lines of a Lars Von Trier. A director who has an audience, for sure, but with humour, Van Aart’s film is an empathetic joy to watch from beginning to end. Well, almost the end as the final kill hits hard only in a slyly clever way that deepens the message it is trying to communicate. A film full of that would be overwrought, however, culminating with it is sharp as a method of escalating the stakes – a proxy of heightened online discourse, maybe?

Why do people troll? Why does that element of the online community pick on a certain individual who is just doing their job? Basically, Van Aart suggests that it doesn’t matter. Whatever petty irritant Femke might have written once upon a time, all that matters now is the fact that these poisonous individuals are ruining her life and livelihood, going as far as getting the police to call at her house on their empty claims that she is a paedophile. We as the viewer are thrown into this situation at the deep end where Femke is battered and broken by her online torturers. In the hands of a less competent actor, this would result in a film that struggles to get off the ground. With Katja Herbers the film sings; outside of the aforementioned final scene her performance is one commanded by facial expression and body language and it is perfectly balanced between exhaustion, furious glee and hope. Frame that within the self-effacing terms the film was created with and you have something of an iconic performance in a film that will go under the radar for many.

I was rapturously entertained by the Columnist, it is sure to be one of those films that I talk about incessantly and annoyingly to anyone that’ll listen. A funny, violent and shrewd film that was perfectly released in a time where the internet is a much more ubiquitous entity in our day-to-day lives. My only worry is the one same one that I have for any time-specific movie – how will it play in 5 years time? And, I have to perfect piece of advice for that, don’t wait 5 years, watch it now. At the very least its a fun slasher, thriller to pile in with the enviable company of American Pyscho, Theatre of Blood and Prevenge. Any filmmaker would dream of being in such an illustrious company.

Thanks for reading Rob’s review of The Columnist

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