Netflix And Chill: How To Blow Up A Pipeline (2023)

While this is only the second film from director Daniel Goldhaber, he's already marked himself out as someone I am always interested. Cam was a fantastic feature debut, and this shows a consistency of form while he moves comfortably from the horror genre into more dramatic, but no less thought-provoking, territory.

In case the title of this film hasn't already made you aware of the content, this is all about a group of people endeavouring to blow up a pipeline. That may seem like a foolhardy mission, and one likely to end in failure, but certain scenes are shown in non-chronological order to illustrate the many extra provisions put in place by activists determined to succeed against overwhelming odds. 

Based on a book by Andreas Malm, adapted for the screen by Goldhaber, Jordan Sjol, and Ariela Barer (who also stars onscreen in a main role), How To Blow Up A Pipeline feels like a film that is very much needed right now. Goldhaber definitely picks a side, which you might say is obvious from the fact that he even made the film at all, but we're at a point in our lives when picking the right side seems like the obviously right thing to do. The planet is burning (sometimes literally), profits are being put ahead of health and safety on a scale that is frankly horrendous, even if that isn't a problem inherent to modern life, and a lot of the news articles and coverage of this situation, and the protesters who have been ramping up their disruption and exposure, tend to frame it as yet another issue in which both sides have valid points to make about the climate change crisis. The data points to only one side being correct, and anyone who wants to deny the catastrophic events of climate change going on around us should do us both a favour now and stop reading. 

Anyway, apologies, back to the film itself. While not exactly lauding the characters as saints, Goldhaber and co. do a fantastic job of using the non-linear narrative to show the motivating factors here, and to make you view their actions as more naive and potentially damaging than they actually are. The clear visuals (from cinematographer Tehillah De Castro, working on only their second feature in this role, I believe, having done numerous music videos and short films) are accompanied by a very good score from Gavin Brivik (who also worked on Cam with Goldhaber), helped by a script that reflects the conviction of our leads while also conveying the attitudes of those who view them as criminals and ignorant pests.

Barer is very good in her role, but I wouldn't feel right singling any one person out from the others. Kristine Froseth, Lukas Gage, Forrest Goodluck, Sasha Lane, Jayme Lawson, Marcus Scribner, and Jake Weary play the core activists, and each and every one of them has a different, but equally important, part to play in the grand plan. They are also working together for a number of different reasons that all happen to stem from the one big issue, and the performances effortlessly show the different types of relationships within the central group (whether they are lifelong friends or newly connected by the requirements of their mission) and why they are so determined to strike a blow for eco-terrorism.

There's a famous Albert Camus quote that more of us should remember on a daily basis: "The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion." That applies more and more nowadays to people who are striving to correct the balance of a world that is being shifted so far off its axis as to be unrecognisable from what it once was. How To Blow Up A Pipeline reminds us that, despite the headlines and opinion pieces, a lot of people you may view with disrespect and disdain are actually risking a hell of a lot to benefit all of us in the long run. You can apply that to the many people currently taking strike action around the world as easily as you can apply it to the eco-terorrism featured here, and I hope this film succeeds in reframing the mindset of at least a few people who sit down to watch it.

8/10

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Netflix And Chill: Cam (2018)

The feature directorial debut of Daniel Goldhaber (other than this he has two shorts under his belt from about five years ago), Cam is both what you expect it to be and, in a number of impressive ways, so much more. The script by Isa Mazzei (also making a debut, developing a story based on her own experiences as a former cam girl) is smart and incisive, building up the tension and atmosphere on the way to a finale that is as satisfying as it is thought-provoking.

The basic story revolves around a young woman named Alice (Madeline Brewer), who makes a living by being a cam girl named Lola. She is desperate to move up the rankings, initially into the top 50 but ultimately to the number one spot, but there are certain rules she has in place that some think will work against her. She deals with keeping her online life separate from her real life, keeping some generous clients happy while also trying to maintain a safe distance, and serious rivalry from at least one other cam girl (who, at one point, offers to strip as long as viewers help to send Lola back down the rankings). But that's nothing compared to what happens next. Someone takes over Alice's account and becomes Lola. She has the same look as Alice, seems to live in the same building, and starts to cause problems. Alice can't find a way to get her account back, reduced to having to look on with mixed feelings as the new Lola goes further than she ever would . . . and starts to move up the rankings.

There's a chance that a number of the elements worked throughout Cam are inevitable strands inseparable from the main narrative thread but I really don't think that's the case, and to say that is doing a great disservice to Mazzei. She's crafted a tale here that attempts to show cam girl life without judging the main characters, at least not for their chosen way of earning money, and also shows just how close the positive and negative qualities are. Making a completely new identity is fun, it's liberating, but it also requires you becoming much more protective of your real identity. You sell your company, your looks, your confident and sexy image, and viewers/customers who completely buy into it all can just as easily turn ugly, either looking down on people who work in the adult entertainment industry, assuming they can make a real connection and take things further, or worse. Even those who don't dismiss cam girls probably assume that their life is just one candy-coloured session after another of evenings spent lying on a bed and telling generous viewers that you're feeling really horny. Technology is allowing a lot of people to make their living in an isolated, and seemingly safer, way but it's also hackable, and everything online has the potential to eventually go viral.

All of these things are mixed in here, with Mazzei's script given solid treatment from Goldhaber, who knows how much to show to ensure that this doesn't feel completely sanitised, yet never dives headfirst into gratuitousness or sheer exploitation (which could have very easily happened). It's a good balance. This is a film about a cam girl, it's not an actual cam show.

Brewer is very good in her main role, very good indeed. In fact, the fact that she is also playing her doppelgänger is something that is easy to forget, despite both characters being identical. She manages to portray the second Lola as someone just lacking . . . something. A soul? Boundaries? It's hard to pin down, sorry, but the performance from Brewer sells it superbly. Melora Walters does well as the oblivious mother of Brewer's character, and David Druid is also good as the brother who knows how his sister is earning her money nowadays. Patch Darragh and Michael Dempsey are two fans, the former a more naive and nervous type while the latter knows how things are played (but assumes he can always still "win"). Those men are different, yet they're ultimately the same, both projecting on to Alice something that isn't actually there. Imani Hakim, Flora Diaz, Jessica Parker Kennedy, Quei Tann, and Samantha Robinson play other cam girls, with Robinson particularly enjoyable as the mean Princess_X.

Cam only has a few moments of outright horror, in the more obvious use of the term, but it's a film that is infused from start to finish with a different kind of horror, be that associated with self-identity, self-harm, or trying to earn a living in a saturated industry that has more workers trying to push things further and further while viewers constantly want more for less (or free, nobody seems to love a freebie more than men who have been titillated). You could even say that the horror is underlined beyond the end credits. When the film finished, much like a cam show, it's your reflection you see. And it's been there all the time, hidden by the more thrilling imagery laid over the top of it.

8/10

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