Fantasia Festival 2020 Film Review: The Columnist
Katja Herbers shines in the glossy, bloody satire of The Columnist
My coverage of Fantasia Festival 2020 continues with director Ivo Van Aart’s dark satirical comedy, The Columnist. The tale of a writer driven to murder by Internet trolls, the film is a timely modern-day parable about the power of words and one woman’s swath of bloody vengeance when she pierces the veil of online anonymity. In the titular role, Katja Herbers puts forth a wicked performance that is pure fun and catharsis, but The Columnist leaves a fair amount on the table, rarely venturing past the surface to get its kicks. Minor spoilers ahead…
Femke Boot (Katja Herbers, Westworld, Evil) lies awake at night, scrolling through a deluge of awfulness on Twitter; her mentions are flooded with tweets dripping with sexism, hate, and threats of violence. And like so many of us that have done the same exact thing in similar situations, she sends a lone tweet in response: “This seems like a perfect moment to say farewell to this fucking medium. Goodbye forever.” And also like so many of us who just can’t quit social media no matter how hard we try, Femke is back on Twitter mere hours later, tap-tap-tapping away at the terrible comments that pile up in her feed. This is the engine of relatability that The Columnist runs on - anyone that’s ever been on social media will be able to connect to Femke’s plight of grappling with savage, faceless commenters that say the worst things imaginable just because they can. But what if you not only found out who these people were, but also knew where they lived? With The Columnist, director Ivo Van Aart spins a revenge yarn grounded in the Internet age: a bloody and cathartic fantasy for anyone who has ever wanted to get back at online trolls.
Ironically, as a writer, Femke’s usual columns are quite tame, typically consisting of fluff pieces detailing how she raises her teenage daughter (Claire Porro), and harmless fare such as “The Joy of a Soft-boiled Egg.” However, when her latest piece - an article that rails against the antiquated and racist Netherlands tradition of people dressing up in blackface as Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) - is published, a large contingent of right-wing trolls mount a debilitating campaign of harassment and griefing. As the old adage goes, “Never read the comments,” but Femke is notoriously horrible at heeding this advice - with every sexist comment, with every violent threat, she descends deeper and deeper into a pit of seething. By pure happenstance, Femke then discovers that her annoying neighbor is both a practitioner of Zwarte Piete and one of the Twitter trolls slandering her good name. In a vengeful crime of opportunity, she finds him on the roof of his house, and pushes him to his death. And mixing a little psychopathy in with her revenge, Femke severs one of his fingers as a trophy.
“
With The Columnist, director Ivo Van Aart spins a revenge yarn grounded in the Internet age: a bloody and cathartic fantasy for anyone who has ever wanted to get back at online trolls.”
This first murder starts Femke on a spree as she begins identifying and offing her online tormentors, one-by-one. There’s great pleasure and catharsis in watching these trolls get their gruesome comeuppance, even if there isn’t much nuance to it (her misogynist victims are rarely anything other than sniveling, cowering fools). Garden shears, scarf garrotes, electrocution, and even firearms - these are just some of the methods that Femke uses to dispatch her enemies, and it’s thrilling to witness. The Columnist belongs to Katja Herbers, who convincingly graduates the shock from her initial crime to unrepentant glee as she gets a taste for bloody retribution. Until now, I’ve only been familiar with Herbers’ work Stateside on television series such as Manhattan, Westworld, and Evil, but it’s great to witness her in her native Dutch element. The film is a whirlwind showcase for Herbers, and she owns every minute of it.
Another one of The Columnist’s strengths is its captivating supporting cast; in particular, Femke’s daughter Anna and boyfriend Steven (Bram van der Kelen) make impactful impressions that flesh out the narrative. Anna is an outspoken student with a penchant for defying her high school’s authoritarian principal, often holding passive-aggressive rallies defending the right to free speech. Steven, on the other hand, starts off as Femke’s brash and combative opponent on a talk show, but it’s quickly revealed that his provocative nature is just a facade he puts on for his horror novelist persona - it turns out that he’s actually quite a nice guy. Both characters paint an interesting dichotomy with Femke’s murderous quest for revenge: Anna’s disruptive - but ultimately peaceful - protests draw a direct contrast to her mother’s violent murders, while Steven represents the fact that first impressions can be quite deceptive, and that people are always more than just their outward appearances and actions. But it’s also here that The Columnist stumbles: Anna and Steven make for intriguing parallels to Femke’s warped sense of justice, but their stories don’t intersect in meaningful ways until the very end of the film. The Columnist fizzles out just when things are getting truly messy and interesting, and it’s here where the film’s non-ambition becomes apparent.
With Martijn Cousijn’s steady and deliberate cinematography and Jeffrey van Rossum’s plucky score beneath its playful veneer, The Columnist is catapulted into a comprehensively winsome movie experience, but its shallow focus and ironic refusal to get its hands dirty is frustrating. What the film lacks in depth is made up for with its acerbic wit, biting commentary, and cathartic bouts of violence, but there’s messaging here that remains cloudy and unexplored.
