My Brief, Honest Review of NotOkay
After waiting so long to see the movie, it lived up to the hype.
It was different than what I was expecting: funny, check, and social commentary, most certainly. But it surprised me by how much it really touched me.
It made me laugh.
It made me uncomfortable.
It made me sad: at the heart of it, Danni was really just a very lonely person, and that was something I could empathize with.
It also alluded to so many frankly disgusting facets of modern culture popularized by American culture.
Fakeness of influencers
Homelessness
Blaming Mental Illness
Desensitized to violence
The need to publicly vilify (hypocrisy)
...to name a few, among others
The fantastic acting by Dylan O’Brien, Mia Isaac, and Zoey Deutch in particular, were undeniable. I found myself forgetting Zoey’s character Danni Sanders was actually the villain in this story!
I liked that there was no happy ending. That kept it realistic and raw.
Did Danni Sanders actually learn anything from it all? The way she faded into the darkness in the final scene was brilliantly done, and answered the question:
I’d really like to think so, and honestly, I believe she did. In the ending I saw she was able to finally recognize that her forgiveness was not more important than Rowan’s pain and healing, and that this moment was hers and hers alone, and she had no business stealing another piece of hers.
But in the end, Danni was right back where she started:
Unknown and insignificant.
Alone.