Critic Reviews

Shephard's steady direction and clever script allow things to hit exactly the right note. Deutch, O'Brien, and Isaac are all terrific, and "Not Okay" is one of the most pleasant surprises of 2022.

Being perpetually online sucks, but movies about it don’t have to, as Not Okay shows time and again.

This deceptively frothy yet incisive little film asserts that even if the punishment doesn’t fit the crime, redemption can’t be claimed in public spaces. Rather, it has to be earned in private, and sometimes, forgiveness isn’t necessarily the most virtuous next step—especially since healing takes time. For these mature observations alone, we have no choice but stan a peerless Quinn.

Writer and director Quinn Shephard's Not Okay takes thing near to the knuckle, but the biting jet-black comedy never loses sight of its intentions, deftly balancing humor and bile with heart and hard-hitting themes.

The movie is an incessant interrogation of what our young people are becoming, what they want and what the rules are to get it, yet its humor and humility make it stand out as one of the better recent satires.

It might be fair to argue that Shephard overreaches with Not Okay, but there’s something bracing and fresh about throwing caution to the wind the way she does. The movie doesn’t have the bland, cookie-cutter feel of so many of the other productions that comment on the evils of the Internet.

Not Okay isn’t the kind of movie that’s going to amass a vast audience (hence its debut via Hulu), but it is one of those of-the-moment ideas that makes you take inventory of where we are, and the manipulation that can play into who commands the spotlight.

Shephard jabs well-placed elbows at modern day media celebrity, where the public’s attention veers in an instant from tutting about death to applauding as Danni does goat yoga.

Not Okay is not the first film to satirize the age of influencers, but it is easily the most unsettling.

It’s refreshing to see a satire, rather than an hours-long documentary, about a grifter. But, unlike Anna Sorokin and Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes (her adaptation: “The Dropout,” also on Hulu), who’s been convicted of fraud, the resolution to “Not Okay” is not as absolute.