How far would you go to feel important? 'Not Okay' explores our obsession with scammers

Have you ever just wanted to be seen? So much so that you’d lie to the world about surviving a terrorist attack for the opportunity to hook up with your coworker and gain 30,000 Instagram followers?

Perhaps that’s not a very relatable sentiment. But there’s a chance that you’d want to experience schadenfreude by watching a film in which someone does just that.

In “Not Okay,” which Searchlight Pictures describes as a dark comedy that is “a mix of cautionary tale and social satire,” Danni Sanders (played by Zoey Deutch) finds out what lengths she would go to to feel like she matters.

And it turns out that she’s kind of a horrible person.

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What is Hulu's 'Not Okay' about?

Danni is the type of privileged “zillennial” (Gen Z on the cusp of being a Millennial) who lives in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood, solicits money from her wealthy parents and says things like, “Can’t tone deaf be, like, a brand, though?” to her boss (Negin Farsad).

When a lie about a trip to Paris gets Danni caught up in an elaborate con about being at ground zero of a terrorist attack, she meets school-shooting survivor, gun-safety activist  and influencer Rowan (Mia Isaac), who also wants her voice to matter, but for less selfish reasons. Rowan wants lawmakers to listen to her and the thousands of other people who have been affected by mass shootings and implement real change.

Meanwhile, Danni is racking up thousands of followers and poses with teeth-whitening products at influencer events.

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Zoey Deutch has perfected being the absolute worst

Danni is a photo editor for an online publication called Depravity who wants to get a byline on the website seemingly at whatever cost. That includes pitching an essay in which she describes having 9/11 FOMO (fear of missing out) because she was on a cruise when the country’s deadliest terrorist attack took place.

Thankfully, the pitch is rejected and Danni is sent back to her desk — and obscurity. Soon, with the help of some marijuana, she’s inspired to go on a writing retreat, and a fake one at that.

She starts living her best “Emily in Paris” life on Instagram through the magic of Photoshop and ends up earning attention in an unexpected way when people start reaching out to her after bombings take place in central Paris, where Danni was supposedly visiting. Of course, when given the opportunity to fess up, she decides to start digging herself a hole.

Remember: Kind of a horrible person.

Suddenly she’s a bombing survivor with tinnitus, and all of her coworkers, including romantic interest “weed boi” influencer Colin (Dylan O’Brien), want to talk to her. Like scam artists who came before her — such as “Grey’s Anatomy” writer Elisabeth Finch, who allegedly faked having cancer and wrote a storyline about it for the show — she borrows from real-life victims’ stories to weave the web of her con.

Throughout, Deutch shows that she’s great at being the absolute worst and portraying characters who are not easy to love (see: her 2019 film ”Buffaloed”).

Of course, it’s only a matter of time before Danni’s life, uh, blows up.

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‘Not Okay’ takes inspiration from Caroline Calloway, Anna Delvey

From New York Magazine references to showing footage of controversial Millennial social-media influencer Caroline Calloway, “Not Okay” reflects on our obsession with scammers and con artists.

Danni is given the honor of gracing the cover of New York Magazine as the “all-American liar,” and everyone is talking about her on the internet. People hate her so much that she’s doxed. What more could she ask for?

She’s given the same treatment as infamous real-life scammers like Anna “Delvey” Sorokin, who was found guilty of multiple charges, including grand larceny, after defrauding New York City socialites while posing as a German heiress. Sorokin was covered by NY Magazine’s The Cut (which gets multiple references in “Not Okay”), and her story inspired a Netflix adaptation called “Inventing Anna.”

The Cut also published a much-anticipated essay in 2019 by writer Natalie Beach, who revealed that she was a ghostwriter for Caroline Calloway. Why is this relevant? Well, because Calloway makes a cameo in the beginning of the film, describing herself as "your favorite writer, socialite, scammer Caroline Calloway” in a vlog that Danni watches on her phone.

Calloway is a 30-year-old woman who garnered a sizable following while posting about her aspirational life as an American attending Cambridge University. After hosting several writing workshops (remember how she had a ghostwriter) and dropping book deals, she has since embraced people calling her a scammer, even promising to publish a book with that epithet. It was made available for pre-order and — possibly true to form — has yet to publish, years later.

Fake it ‘til you make it. There is no such thing as bad publicity. Danni embodies these adages. So did Caroline Calloway, whose appearance in the film and inclusion in the credits suggest that she managed to come out on top.

Even in their downfall, they win.

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So what? Are we supposed to feel bad for a grifter?

By the end, a fellow online shaming support group member (played by director Quinn Shephard) accuses Danni of being “a privileged white girl who thinks she's the main character."

"So, what? Are we supposed to feel bad for you?" she asks.

Later, Rowan tells her side of the story in a spoken-word poem: "Why is a story like yours something we read every other night? Why do people like you get movies on Netflix and Hulu, and people like me get told to sit tight and wait for change?"

Yeah, it’s the kind of meta that can make your head spin.

(And, on the topic of Rowan’s spoken-word performances, it's hard to take your eyes off of Mia Isaac — a feat that is more impressive when you find out that this is only her second feature film role. It’s hard to imagine many actors being able to play someone with such righteous teenage anger.)

The answer that Shephard seems to be leading us to is: no, Danni doesn’t have a redeeming arc. But it’s complicated, because she’s torn up about it. She doesn’t revel in her notoriety like she once would have. Instead, she warns viewers in the beginning to “be careful what you ... wish for.”

Are we supposed to feel bad as voyeurs for watching a nearly two-hour film — on Hulu, as Rowan pointed out — about yet another scam artist? Should we feel compelled to pull up a documentary like “After Parkland” next, out of guilt?

It’s refreshing to see a satire, rather than an hours-long documentary, about a grifter. But, unlike Anna Sorokin and Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes (her adaptation: “The Dropout,” also on Hulu), who’s been convicted of fraud, the resolution to “Not Okay” is not as absolute.

'Not Okay' 3.5 stars

Great ★★★★★ Good ★★★★

Fair ★★★ Bad ★★ Bomb ★

Director: Quinn Shephard.

Cast: Zoey Deutch, Dylan O’Brien, Mia Isaac, Embeth Davidtz, Nadia Alexander, Tia Dionne Hodge and Negin Farsad.

Rating: R.

Note: Releases on Hulu July 29.

Reach Entertainment Reporter KiMi Robinson at kimi.robinson@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @kimirobin and Instagram @ReporterKiMi.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 'Not Okay' movie: A guilt trip for the influencer age