The Influencer Project review: a thriller that feeds on the tropes it mocks

Chiara King stars as Chiara King in The Influencer Project, a thriller that turns a sponsored trip to Copenhagen into a quease-inducing ride through social media's ugliest habits. British influencer, singer and content creator King plays, as the Guardian's review puts it, "some kind of parafictional version of herself" in a film that mimics the very formats it claims to critique.

The plot is simple. A tourist organisation invites King to Copenhagen, a deal arranged by her avaricious manager Alice, played by Jazmine Summer. Nearly every waking moment gets filmed — by King herself on her smartphone, and by a camera crew led by director Mike, played by Mike Nybroe, who also directs the actual film. Daniel Parmo plays sound man Daniel. Luca Storm plays cameraman Victor.

What makes the film uncomfortable?

The ick, according to the Guardian, comes not from the gore that erupts in the final reel. It comes from "the tacky weirdness of the way the film apes the mannerisms of social media reels and streaming nonsense to both satirise the ugly side of the business but also exploit and profit off it at the same time".

The reviewer frames the result as a work of bad faith, comparing it to "a poor Michael Haneke film (think Funny Games) for gen-Z kicks" — while conceding the alternative reading: "maybe it's just a crappy ripoff of online tropes that have been way overexposed already". The review's verdict: possibly both at once.

What actually happens on screen?

The early sections deliver exactly the influence-slop the title promises:

• Shopping trips to trendy merch vendors, including the Copenhagen label Baum und Pferdgarten
• Meals at fancy local restaurants
• A livestreamed visit to a "haunted house" — the big thing on Instagram and TikTok right now, per the review

The cast layers real names onto fictional roles, a device that suits a film trading on blurred lines between persona and person. The director plays a director; the influencer plays an influencer.

Does the satire land?

Not really, in the Guardian's judgment. The film wants credit for critiquing the attention economy while running on its fuel — shopping hauls, restaurant stops, a haunted-house livestream, all rendered in the visual grammar of reels. When the violence finally arrives, it reads less as escalation than as the last overexposed trope left in the queue.

For audiences deciding whether to stream it, the review's warning is clear: the discomfort is the product. Whether that registers as clever or cynical depends on how much patience one has for a film that monetises the thing it mocks.