Directed by Andrew Neel
(Not rated)
***
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“If social satire that elicits scornful laughter is your kind of humor, King Kelly will have you doubled over with guilty guffaws,” said Stephen Holden in The New York Times. This video-on-demand release was filmed almost exclusively on cellphone cameras, but its “master stroke” may be “the artfully unhinged lead performance of Louisa Krause.” Krause plays Kelly, a fame-obsessed 20-something who performs sex acts for her webcam audience and occasionally works as a drug mule. When heroin in her care goes missing, she keeps her camera rolling as she sets out to recover it. Secondary characters offer relief from Kelly’s “relentless self-absorption,” said Alison Willmore inthe A.V. Club. Standouts include Roderick Hill as a state trooper fixated on Kelly and Libby Woodbridge as her “much-abused peon of a friend.” King Kelly may look like just another Blair Witch Project copycat, said Matt Singer in Time Out New York. But director Andrew Neel “has hit upon a compelling reason for the found-footage gimmick: to indict a narcissistic generation who think their phones make them royalty.”
