Director: Sarah Smick
Writers: Sarah Smick and Ian Michaels
Cast: Ryan Hansen, James Immekus, Zach McGowan and Sarah Smick
Studio: Green Step Productions
“Friended to Death” is a film about Michael Harris and his addiction to social media. Ryan Hansen does a great job in the lead, as he manages to capture the personality of those people that caused me to destroy our comments section. We brought it back, guys! There’s just way more hoops to jump through, so you had better mean what you posted. Back to the movie, Michael is a guy that lives by the selfie and status update. Eventually, he screws up and posts information that he shouldn’t online. Michael loses his meter maid job, ends up on the outs with his friend and finds himself leaning on people he doesn’t know. That’s when he decides to stage his own funeral, since no one cares if he lives or dies.
The aspect of wanting to attend your own funeral isn’t morbid, so much as it is needy. It’s the ultimate vindication of a narcissist, as they can watch others validate his/her existence by placing themselves in a coffin dais as the center of attention. The film treats the act as that and it was pleasing to see Michael get called out for his actions. But, he also saw that many of his friends were undercover scum. The world isn’t black and white, people. While the movie does follow a basic comedic formula, the attention paid to subverting expectations was great.
If anything, the film works on its simple premise. Sad bastards will go out of their way to connect in artificial mediums. It’s just what they do with that interaction and how they validate themselves upon empty gestures and friendships. Don’t expect anything too serious, as you can probably guess your way through the plot. Just sit back and enjoy a rather well crafted comedy.
RELEASE DATE: 05/02/2014