Review: The Columnist
Digital: The Columnist (2019)
Newspaper columnist and author Femke Boot (Katja Herbers) is suffering from writers’ block, and her ability to overcome this is not helped by a constant barrage of personal abuse on social media platforms.
Upon discovering that her next door neighbour is one of the people posting hateful messages about her, she “helps him” when he cleans his roof…say no more!
This act of retribution stimulates her writing, and so when the writers block inevitably returns, she now has a technique that she knows helps to cure it…all the online trolls had better beware!
Her new horror author boyfriend Steven Dood (Bram van der Kelen) has no idea that Femke’s nocturnal trips are more than just ‘nipping out for some shopping’, but when he and Femke’s daughter Anna (Claire Porro) begin to have their suspicions, Femke’s life begins to unravel…as well as her sanity.
Full of pathos, laughs, and a good dollop of blood, I was completely engaged with Femke’s struggles all the way through its 86 minute running time, and was wondering how all of this would end as events got more and more out of her control.
Superbly acted by all involved and with a satirical, gory and completely engrossing look at what happens when the victim of online abuse says “enough is enough”, The Columnist is a timely reminder of #BeKind.
Review by Dave from a streaming link kindly supplied by Vertigo Releasing via Fetch Publicity.