"Profile" a smart, nerve-shredding "screenlife" thriller

Profile (2021)

Trends can evolve over time, much like the “screenlife” format that tells a story entirely through technology. Having banged the drum for this method of filmmaking—and producing several projects with this aesthetic, starting with 2015’s “Unfriended”—Timur Bekmambetov has now directed one himself. With the journalistic thriller “Profile,” Bekmambetov leaves out all supernatural entities and gets ambitious by telling a horror story of real-world terror, like ISIS recruitment. Proof of concept that its form of storytelling isn’t fading anytime soon, “Profile” holds such a gripping power that it would be near impossible to sign off. It is that tense.

Based upon the non-fiction book “In the Skin of a Jihadist” by French journalist Anna Erelle, the film follows London journalist Amy, played by Valene Kane. Desperate to make her big break and keep up the rent for her flat, she begins investigating why many young European women have left the UK to become jihadi brides. From there, she goes down a rabbit hole into the ISIS recruitment process. After pitching the story to her editor (Christine Adams), Amy puts together a fake Facebook profile as 19-year-old “Melody Nelson,” a recent Islam convert. Sharing videos of ISIS propaganda as bait, she begins chatting with jihadist Abu Bilel Al-Britani (Shazad Latif). Once he wants to Skype with her, she puts on the hijab and becomes “Melody.” As their casual conversations blossoms into a long-distance relationship, Amy is able to pull the wool over Bilel’s eyes so much that he flirts with the idea of marriage. Amy has fallen so deep into creating this other persona, blurring her assignment with actual feelings for Bilel, that letting her guard down could not only make her blow her cover but, worse, get her killed.

While the concept of watching a film unfold entirely over a computer screen is now less novel on the heels of 2018’s “Searching” and 2020’s “Host,” “Profile” manages to be daring and consistently harrowing. Writer-director Timur Bekmambetov (2012’s “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”) and co-writers Britt Poulton and Olga Kharina make sure that the film extends beyond being a mere gimmick but an actual story being told, using its online setup to immerse and bring more immediacy. Even when Amy is just navigating different pages and tabs in the early going, there’s that familiarity of working on one’s own laptop at home. By then adding Amy’s entire “fake it till you make it” ruse, inopportune FaceTime calls from Amy’s fiancée Matt (Morgan Watkins), and then Bilel requesting "Melody" to share her screen, there's white-knuckle tension in Amy possibly tripping up in gaining Bilel’s trust. It's not hard to tell who's more experienced at playing the other and having the upper hand, but it's like watching a riveting life-or-death game of chess.

Not including the horror genre, “Profile” serves as one of the smartest and most nerve-shredding entries in this increasingly innovative sub-genre since “Searching.” Driving the story—and solidifying the entire concept’s verisimilitude—is the strong performance by Valene Kane. We believe that Amy would risk her life to get this story. We believe Amy's attempts at code-switching by acting coy and girlish and then falling for Bilel in the process. Kane makes every choice and emotion of Amy and Melody feel believable and emotionally sound. Does Amy make careless decisions that flawlessly intelligent audience members will find frustrating? Of course. But have you ever met an emotional, ill-prepared human being? In that other Skype window is another key performance by Shazad Latif (2018’s “The Commuter”), who’s so charismatic and seemingly trustworthy as Bilel that we can understand how Amy/Melody is seduced by him. We almost buy into what he's selling, too. As “Profile” ups the ante, it may strain credibility a bit, but by then, the viewer has already been wrapped up in Amy carrying on this double life and has probably chewed off all of their fingernails. When Amy goes through the wringer, so do we.

Grade: B +

Focus Features is releasing “Profile” (105 min.) in theaters on May 14, 2021.