‘American Sweatshop’ Movie Review: Cyber-Moderator Exposé Triggers And Sticks With You
Photo from Brainstorm Media
From Jeremy Kibler
Before you go and complain about how awful your job might be, the daily grind of working as an Internet moderator seems crippling on one’s morality and mental health (not to mention eye strain and poor posture). That’s at least the way such a vocation is presented in American Sweatshop, a cautionary tale about online culture and its detached, desensitizing effect without being preachy. As written by Matthew Nemeth and directed by Uta Briesewitz, the film is most provocative and fascinating as a workplace exposé about the psychological toll of getting paid to watch than it is when shifting more into a justice-seeking tech thriller. Even so, American Sweatshop is still riveting.
The always-charming Lili Reinhart takes on darker material in playing Daisy, a 25-year-old Floridian who works an office job as a content moderator. Day in and day out, she sits in front of a computer reviewing user-flagged video posts (porn, violence, animal cruelty, you name it) that violate the company’s guidelines. Each post is considered a “ticket,” but “nuance is key” in what differentiates between merely offensive content that can be approved and offensive content that needs to actually be reported and removed. When Daisy comes across one particularly violent video in which a creepy-looking man inflicts pain upon a woman chained to a bed, it disturbs her so much that she faints at her desk. Daisy wants to report the video to the police, but her German boss, ironically named Joy (icily played by Christiane Paul), won’t bring in the authorities, which would present consequences for the company. Naturally, Daisy won’t rest or remain sane until she finds the man responsible and confronts him.
Watching people watch videos all day does not sound inherently cinematic (that’s just our new normal in everyday life), but director Uta Briesewitz finds a way into making this profession compelling to watch. Daisy and her colleagues at the sterile, corporate Paladin office watch so no else has to, but they’re not censors, just overseers. As Daisy puts it, they’re the “first responders of the Internet,” promoting a safe space online. As it would be very easy for the film to have its cake and eat it too (i.e. condemning these videos but getting thrills out of said videos), Briesewitz doesn’t sensationalize any of the depravity but is very judicious in what she shows (sometimes in close-ups on Daisy’s eyes) and what she doesn’t show when effective sound design gets the job done effectively.
Daisy is written and acted with a backbone, and it is Lili Reinhart’s tough, engaging lead performance that remains the glue. The film fortunately finds a curiosity in Daisy and in giving her a voice. A first date provides some insight into why Daisy does what she does and why she isn’t able to pursue nursing. As a way to cope, decompress and possibly numb herself, Daisy not only gets high after work but sometimes even during work on her break. One key character turn, as impulsive and alcohol-induced as it is to be justified, strikes a little false in Daisy’s mental collapse, but Reinhart is commanding at every moment and makes the arc feel plausible.
The film is dotted with other personalities in Daisy’s colleagues as played by Daniela Melchior (The Suicide Squad), as feisty and unfazed Ava; Joel Fry (Cruella), as loud-mouthed wild card Bob; and Jeremy Ang Jones, as anxious, overqualified new guy Paul, who gets a truly poignant moment where he leaves work early after watching a rather trigging video and goes home to his dog. An entire film could have been made about this workspace, but Matthew Nemeth’s screenplay does eventually have to become a makeshift detective story as Daisy adopts a hero complex. Interrogating the reality of living online with a magnetic Lili Reinhart as our tour guide, American Sweatshop is hard to shake.
Rating: 3.5/5
American Sweatshop is currently in theaters.
