Review by LL Soares
Madeline Brewer, previously in the TV shows ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK (2013), HEMLOCK GROVE (2014 2015), and more recently on Hulu’s THE HANDMAID’S TALE, plays Alice, a young woman who undresses in front of a camera for money (i.e., a camgirl). While many camgirls go so far as to perform sex acts onscreen, Alice has rules. She won’t do anything in public, she won’t get completely naked, and there’s a line to what she will (and won’t) do for her adoring audience, many of whom are regulars who tune in just to see her. Welcome to the world of CAM (2018).
Despite all the things she won’t do, Alice seems to be doing okay at it, making enough money to pay the bills. But she can’t break the Top 40 of most popular camgirls. She does get a boost when she tries something new and fakes an onscreen suicide (with lots of fake blood), but soon finds that her efforts are being thwarted by other camgirls who are actively trying to lower her score.
Meanwhile, when she’s not on camera, Alice is trying to live a normal life, including spending time with her hairdresser mother, Lynne (Melora Walters) and her teenage brother, Jordan (Devin Druid). Jordan’s friends have found out what she does for a living and endlessly tease Jordan about it, but Alice is hesitant to tell her mother about her job.
Soon, she’s not going to have a choice in the matter.
One day she looks online and sees that her camera account is active, and that she’s onscreen, doing things a bit wilder than normal. The problem is, she’s not doing it. Someone who looks exactly like her has hacked her account and is stealing her internet “fame.” The movie never really explains who this doppelganger is, or where she came from, but she makes Alice’s life increasingly nightmarish, stealing her livelihood and ruining a reputation she’s taken so long to establish.
This other Alice, using her onscreen name of Lola, doesn’t follow the same rules, and as a result, her score is going higher. But the real Alice can’t benefit. Her password won’t work, and the Help desk at the site that runs her feed is helpless to fix things. Alice even calls in the police, but they have no idea what to do, and one of the cops even hits on her.
We also get to see the people who are part of her “Lola” world, including fellow camgirls like her friends Baby (Imani Hakin) and Fox (Flora Diaz), and a rival named PrincessX (Samantha Robinson from THE LOVE WITCH, 2016); customers like Barney (Michael Dempsey), who enjoys the power and attention he gets by showering chosen camgirls with attention and money, and who would be an average schlub otherwise; and Tinker (Patch Darragh), a weird guy (who sweats a lot!) who tunes in regularly and appears to be a stalker, having followed Alice to her hometown.
CAM is the feature debut of filmmaker Daniel Goldhaber, who previously made some short films, and the screenplay is by Goldhaber and fellow newbie Isa Mazzei. It is currently streaming on Netflix and is a fun little flick, mostly due to its charismatic star (Brewer), who really deserves more lead roles.
I give CAM, three knives.
© Copyright 2018 by LL Soares
LL Soares gives CAM ~ three knives.
L.L. Soares 