Copyright Variety
“Influencers” writer and director Kurtis David Harder has noticed a strange phenomenon about real-life influencers. “There’s this concept of audience capture, when it becomes a feedback loop where you’re presenting something online, an idea, and you see how it responds with your audience,” he says. “That actually influences how you perceive your own messaging, and you can find yourself in these traps. I think that a lot of online personas oftentimes are just filling expectations as opposed to their true opinion.” Harder is describing one of the new characters, Jacob, from “Influencers,” which is the closing night feature on Saturday at this year’s FilmQuest in Provo, Utah. The film is a sequel to the twisty 2022 thriller “Influencer,” which followed maniacal social climber CW (Cassandra Naud) as she manipulated a wealthy influencer named Madison (Emily Tennant) in order to take over her bougie lifestyle. Much like Harder’s analysis of identifiable internet figures like Jacob, “Influencer” worked not only because of shocking moments in the script, but it was fluent in the specificity and idiosyncrasies of the uniquely modern lifestyle, portraying three-dimensional characters instead of caricatures. “It’s always interesting to view how people perceive themselves online and how they present,” Harder says. “In both films, we come in and see the most extreme versions of these characters, and slowly pull back the threads and see, ‘How did we get here? Who are these people really? Do they believe the things that they’re saying?'” Although the topic lends itself to fertile storytelling, Harder admits he didn’t expect to ever do a sequel. That seems especially true when considering the ending of the first film, in which our antihero CW is abandoned on a deserted island to die. But CW’s story stuck with him, and he was able to conceive a creative way back into her story. This new chapter follows CW, now in a committed relationship with Diane (Lisa Delamar) and seemingly distant from her bloodthirsty aspirations. But a chance meeting on vacation with a group of influencers makes things spiral out of control. Harder cites a sumptuous mixture of inspirations, as “Influencers” blends the thrills of Alfred Hitchcock and Patricia Highsmith (whose most-lauded character, the con man Tom Ripley, would have a run for his money facing off against CW) with the French New Wave style and classics like “La Piscine.” “Seeing another side of CW and going into more of what makes her start this whole journey was fascinating to me,” he says. “There were a lot of things I wanted to do with the first film, but because it was small and our first time shooting overseas, there was opportunity in coming back to explore the character again and see another side of her. Coming into this one, we had slightly more resources, but also everyone on the team had leveled up. So we were able to do some of the fight sequences we wanted to do, some of these set pieces that were not really possible with the scope of the first.” Part of that leveling up meant stretching their money even further. As per the wealthy lifestyle of these influencers, the film looks even more lush than the first, making the most out of on-location filming at gorgeous locales in Bali and France. “As a filmmaker, it’s about finding your limitations and how you can actually use those to your advantage,” Harder says. “Oftentimes, you’re given the advice of, ‘When you’re making a movie, make it in the smallest location possible, shoot it all in one house.’ I’ve always gravitated to doing the opposite of that. It was liberating to have a smaller group. Coming into this, you think, ‘How can I shoot longer, in more locations, and be able to explore a bunch of different places?’ I think that goes a long way if you’re able to travel. We went to Thailand with a very small group and just traveled the country like a documentary. In that approach, you’re able to take advantage of these vistas that you wouldn’t normally be able to get back in North America, or locations that would be very difficult to secure on a small budget.” In the wake of “Influencers,” Harder says he’s squarely focused on impactful modern storytelling that examines the undercurrents of society, which could include more of CW’s adventures. “I subscribe to the Tarantino trilogy logic of, ‘If you’re going to make a second one, you better outpace everything that worked about the first one, but do some subversions, take it to another level and make a better film,'” he says. “For a trilogy to work, you need to do that again. My brain’s always spinning with ideas, so we’ll see if that materializes. But I want to tell a bunch of different stories in that realm, exploring different subcultures or what’s currently in the zeitgeist. I’m finding myself exploring very current and ever-changing societal problems.”
