67
"Under The Influence" gets more interesting once the doc shifts focus from Dobrik’s rapid rise to fame to peel back the performative layers of his act.
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83
Consequence by Clint Worthington
But that’s the interesting thing about Under the Influence: What started out as a puff-piece doc about YouTube’s golden child was forced by circumstance to become a chronicle of the ways the platform facilitates abuse and drives both creator and audience alike to ruin. It’s a blessing that Neistat rises to the challenge.
75
For many of the extremely online people born after the year 2000, “Under the Influence” offers a closer look at the cultural history that’s already close to their hearts, less valuable for Neistat’s insight than for his access ... For the rest of us ... this film provides a bone-chilling biopsy of the malignant narcissism that’s quietly metastasized across Gen Z’s celebrity-industrial complex, more valuable for Neistat’s perspective than for any of his characters.
30
The Hollywood Reporter by John DeFore
Viewers who’ve never seen a Dobrik video and have only cursory (if any) knowledge of the allegations that briefly interrupted his career will come away feeling they understand the buoyant, boyish 25 year-old’s appeal — but they may be frustrated by the film’s less-than-probing look at behavior that should have caused him much more trouble than he endured.
58
What initially starts as a light-hearted look at YouTube star David Dobrik and his “Vlog Squad” evolves into a portrait that doesn’t quite know what to make of him and his enablers.
80
Under the Influence is a very absorbing, very disquieting, very meaningful-for-our-time documentary.