Typical Netflix. Cambridge Analytica rose to public consciousness when Trump won the 2016 election so since then, we have had innumerable news reports; documentaries; movies; new files in the investigation coming to light; etc etc etc. As long as there is air we will NEVER FORGET about the security compromise that SHOCKED A GENERATION (sic Monty Python). I followed along when the story broke (only because I couldn’t get away from it) but never thought it directly affected ME, personally. I know that online is no longer a safe bastion and possibly never was: that ANYONE can read ANYTHING you publish, ANYTIME, even when you delete it! So why post anything incriminating? But people do all the time and it is for these people this movie was made: a step-by-step breakdown of the events that led CA to bankruptcy; Zukerburg under fire; and a whole new hashtag for the internet to use to protest the lack of online privacy.

The documentary’s main subject is Brittany Kaiser, a former director for CA and currently on-the-run to try and maintain her own comfort bubble of security during her former company’s inquiry. As epigonous as the rest of the movie is, Kaiser is what really brings it down. I am reminded of one of those pick-two-out-of-three triangles I saw online, where you would rather date a girl who is intelligent, emotionally-stable, or attractive: Kaiser is pretty and obviously brilliant but not-at-all emotionally-stable, and her bland, monotonous personality is like any jean jacket-wearing teenager from high school who would hang out behind the art room and smoke cigarettes and talk about how everything sucks. What about accusations that initial whistleblower Chris Wylie wasn’t even working for CA during the scandal? Or Professor David Carroll’s attempt to subpoena his own information stolen by CA, back from them? And what happened to journalist Carole Cadwalladr, who became the bulls eye for pro-Brexit supporters? What ABOUT Brexit? We KNOW that CA was involved, but what was the aftermath? It’s been THREE YEARS! Damnit this movie makes me so FRUSTRATED! Every interesting thread the movie tries to introduce, ends anticlimactically in favor of more Kaiser. No more dinner bread, please.

As my partner was want to remind me, just because I don’t have a Facebook account doesn’t mean my activity isn’t tracked online. I know that. Why do you think I’m always getting banner ads advertising half-naked fantasy girls in ahegao telling me I’ll cum in 5-minutes playing their game? But the bottom line was that, the movie’s focal point was not on the outside players (not Carroll, Cadwalladr, or even Wylie’s quests for vindication) or on the different online avenues BESIDES Facebook where the average user’s private information could be compromised (Google search results? WORDPRESS?). The movie was far more interested in the uninteresting Kaiser and the way CA used the Big F’s tools to sway the election. That’s it. No big revelations we didn’t know about; no twist ending that rocked me to my core; no reasons for me to leave Facebook and plenty to continue to ignore it. Soon we’ll be getting Netflix documentaries about how different displaced minorities go to the bathroom in the woods. And the moral could be, that in the end, we all shit the same? OMG MOVIE OF THE YEAR.