Mainstream (2020)

Third generation writer/director Gia Coppola (Palo Alto) returns for her sophomore feature with Mainstream (2020) a film about going viral and doing whatever one can in order to achieve internet fame. Frankie (Maya Hawke) is an artist and wannabe internet celebrity who spends her days cruising around Los Angeles filming videos with her friend Jake (Nat Wolff) in an attempt to become famous. Instead, she's mostly just entertaining her minuscule amount of followers while always dreaming of stumbling on that thing that could change her fate. That thing presents itself in the form of Link (Andrew Garfield) a man so out of tune with the modern digital age that he doesn't own a phone. Frankie hits upon a new idea, wherein she will film Link delivering his anti-internet, anti-social media, anti-establishment thoughts as a sort of Tyler Durden for the disillusioned internet age. While this does, of course, bring with it a modicum of notoriety and fame, Link turns out to be a much harder to contain entity than Frankie initially suspected and the longer she maintains this partnership, the more unhinged and unstable Link's ideas and schemes become. While it seemed like Maya Hawke had really hit her nudity stride in 2019 and 2020, she keeps her clothes on for this flick, which is a real shame. At least there's a scene where we catch a quick flash of her bethonged booty when she twirls around in a short skirt while getting ready to hook up with Garfield! We weren't expecting much smut from a movie titled "Mainstream" but you can't blame us for hoping the title was meant ironically!