"The Columnist" a pitch-black revenge fantasy that questions troll control

The Columnist (2021)

Online trolls are just the worst. Blackly comic Dutch social satire “The Columnist” recognizes this and then plays out as a harassed writer’s righteous, perversely cathartic revenge fantasy — that’s right, kill those vitriol-typing bullies offline! Just think: if everyone who ever left a horrible comment on Twitter was taken out, there would be a large reduction in the population. Director Ivo van Aart and writer Dan Windhorst set up a unique tone with an almost-cavalier gallows sense of humor, while still taking things seriously, like the toll social media takes on one’s mental health. 

Katja Herbers (TV’s “Evil”) is seething, fierce, and sneakily funny as Femke Boot, the titular feminist columnist. The target of hate messages and death threats online, Femke does everything a writer should not do. She doom scrolls. She reads the comments. She engages. She does everything but write or even type a single word for her new book, even with a publishing house breathing down her neck. “Why can’t we just have different opinions and be nice about it?” Femke repeatedly asks. But instead of getting an answer, she takes action, and it’s not the moral high ground for which she usually stands. After pushing her neighbor off the roof, Femke takes it upon herself to punish anyone who “deserves” it. As trophies, she severs a finger from each of her victims and hides it in a box of frozen peas. As the body count increases, Femke keeps getting closer to finishing and launching her book.

Dan Windhorst’s script does counterbalance the carnage twofold with two important people in Femke’s life. Her teenage daughter, Anna (Claire Porro), gets a subplot that juxtaposes Femke’s vigilantism. After butting heads with her high school’s headmaster, Anna fights for her freedom of speech in a more constructive way. Bram van der Kelen also subverts all expectations as horror novelist Steven Dood (which translates to “Dead”), belying his goth-black eyeliner and nail polish. He’s first introduced as a would-be victim for Femke, as they engage in a tumultuous back-and-forth during a TV interview. Once they wind up dating and Steven ends up becoming Femke’s supportive boyfriend, he brings an endearing quality (and it’s a nice counterpoint to Femke’s new murder hobby that he cooks as his stress-buster).

Femke is identifiable to a point — she’s a writer who keeps getting distracted and ends up checking her social media feeds when she should be finishing her novel. It also doesn’t take much to keep Femke awake at night. Once she crosses the line, there is an immediate catharsis. But, of course, Femke is becoming far worse than the people she’s trolling for trolling her from behind a keyboard. In her eyes, they deserve to be eradicated, but Femke is decidedly an anti-hero. A few logic oversights are a bother but easy to get around. Apparently, all of the commenters Femke targets happen to live nearby (the first being directly next door), and how does she figure out all of their home addresses? Well, the Internet maybe. By the bleak end, Femke has reached the point of no return, leading up to her book launch (and just wait until you see her all-white outfit that makes her book cover).

Savage and pointedly unsubtle, “The Columnist” is “Serial Mom” for the 21st century, speaking directly to these current times of divisive opinions. Instead of beating someone to death with a payphone for wearing white shoes after Labor Day, you get strangled with a scarf and beat over the head with a frying pan for calling someone a “whore.” It’s more of an unapologetic revenge fantasy that knows revenge on trolls won’t solve anything—it’s putting an end to hate with hate—but on that level, it works bloody well. It’s also a call to arms to be less of a shitty person. 

Grade: B -

Film Movement released “The Columnist” (86 min.) to video on demand on May 7, 2021.