www.RachelOrmont.com

“So are you more of a Virgin or a Chad? Wojak? Pepe? Groyper? Shrivelled up Wojak? Are you straight? Gay? Cis? Trans? Nonbinary? Incel? Femcel? Volcel? Liberal? Leftist? Marxist? Leninist? Fascist? Monarchist? Anarchist? Neo-Lib? Lib-fem? Tankie? Conservative? Libertarian? Finance punk? Anarcho-capitalist? Post-left? Post identity accelerationist? New-right? Alt-right? Old left? Old right? Classic liberal? Neo-new righteroni? Are you blue-pilled? Red-pilled? Black-pilled, white-pilled, clear-pilled, God-pilled? Are you Protestant? Trad Cath? Sedevacantist? Jew? Hasid? Muslim? Islamic fundamentalist? Urbit planeteer? Angelicist? Raised in the Bahai faith?”

If this combination of words sparked deep confusion or a viscerally negative reaction in you, congratulations! You are not the target audience for Peter Vack’s sophomore feature www.RachelOrmont.com, where that is only a snippet of a lengthy, glorious monologue. But if you found this excerpt intriguing or even thought-provoking, I regret to inform you that you are the exact kind of person destined to adore modern cinema’s strangest masterpiece.

It is practically impossible to describe the plot of Vack’s film, which stars his sister Betsey Brown as the titular Rachel Ormont. In a “dystopian” present where the North American Assessment and Advertising Agency (NAAAAA) controls the entertainment industry, people sell themselves and their babies to the agency to get a chance for fame. Rachel is a 31-year-old woman who has lived her entire life locked in a room and rating the performances of a popstar named Mommy 6.0. Mommy 6.0’s name comes from the fact that she is the sixth clone of Rachel’s mother (Chloe Cherry), who sold her baby and herself to NAAAAA. Rachel, convinced Mommy 6.0 is trying to send her a message, desperately attempts to get in contact with the enigmatic figure. 

What a normal plot synopsis of a dystopian science fiction comedy! Filmmaker Peter Vack is not remotely concerned with simplicity. Instead, his film becomes one of the first truly transgressive pieces of art of the internet era. In a time where people romanticize their “edginess” as something powerful, Vack has made a genuinely provocative piece of art. 

What makes Vack stand out from the wannabes is his complete understanding of the world he is writing about. He does not skin a handful of headlines and decide he must make a film about how weird the internet is these days, nor does he attempt to appeal to a broad audience for the sake of cementing his legacy. Instead, as he said himself, he wants to make a time capsule of living on the internet in the 2020s. Though we are currently in an era of nostalgia bait cinema, Vack chooses to highlight the uncomfortable reality of the way we have programmed (or been programmed to have) our brains to think. 

The world Rachel lives in reflects that of our modern social media landscape, where people vie for attention and speak exclusively in shitposts. Vack imbues so much poignant messaging in nearly every aspect of this film. The relationship between Rachel and Mommy 6.0 alone comments on the nature of parasocial relationships and celebrity worship, reflects the commodification of our bodies and sexuality by capitalism, critiques our own slavery to consumerism, mocks the cruelty of the internet, and depicts the popularization of performative identities and personalities. But most significantly, Rachel’s parasocial relationship with Mommy and her discovery of her sexuality are both immediately used against her and turned into yet another tool for the people in charge. The Ormont family, including Mommy herself, are stuck in a constant loop of creative torture because they sold themselves to the agency and have no other way to survive. 

Another storyline that is critical to www.RachelOrmont.com’s thematic resonance is introduced after Rachel is rejected from her tasks as an assessor (where she watches Mommy 6.0 performances and rates them for a committee) and as an advertiser (where she’s forced to review sex toys until the state of physical discomfort). With no other alternatives in sight, she is adopted by the Ormont family of content creators. A good portion of the film follows Darci (Dasha Nekrasova) and her “show”, where she performs for a live audience of people who adore yet hate her. Darci’s show is a humiliation ritual; she brings others on stage with the intent to chastise them under the act of Godliness and humour, often making them repeat humiliating actions or outright killing them. Her audience finds her evil but also cannot take their eyes off of her: a truth too familiar to those of us who spend our time online. Nekrasova, in a hilariously meta role, really sells her performance as someone who alternates in costume and personality between a doll, a Catholic, and Hitler. We can watch others be shamed and mortified, but we find ourselves unable to do anything more than express our discomfort. We can be cruel to people we will never meet under the guise of comedy, but is that ethical? 

Though the writing is exceptional, the film only works thanks to Betsey Brown’s generational talent as an actress. Rachel should not be a feasible role; she is a 31-year-old woman with the brain of an mentally stunted child. While Brown could have played this role with a smirk, as if in on the joke, she opts to instead deliver a truly sympathetic performance. Rachel has outrageous lines of dialogue and makes even more outrageous decisions, but they stem from a genuine place of innocence within Brown’s performance. When she reacts to the nightmares in front of her, when she cries, you can feel the pain within her as someone who truly does not know what is happening but knows it is hurting her. Rachel is an innocent within a world that seeks to destroy her innocence for sheer amusement. The scene where Rachel finally enters the real world, even if brief, is potentially the best-acted scene of the decade. And for a moment, even though you have just watched a collection of shitposts, offensive comments, and porn on Darci’s stage, you forget it all and are instead filled with intense empathy for Rachel. After witnessing her entire filmography, I cannot understand why Brown is not our biggest movie star. No currently working actor is remotely on her level.

The film itself is also quite gorgeous, despite the constant stream of memes in the background. The color scheme is taken directly out of your phone screen and is complimented excellently by the hazy visuals. The costume and makeup/hairstyling work is singular, with every look being simultaneously campy and fitting for the situation at hand. Some standouts are Darci’s doll look, Mommy’s performance outfits, and Rachel’s re-invented agency uniform after she has gained a bit of freedom. The idea to add subtitles as part of the film also adds a layer of humour to the dialogue, extracting punchlines in places most writers would never think of. Different lines get different fonts, colors, and even emojis. In the best possible way, this film often feels like the greatest TikTok of all time.

Vack’s film is a mess of colors, edgelord humor, and perversion, but it is also truly smart and truly heartfelt. Even if not explicitly stated, he works with anti-capitalist commentary in a way that feels smarter than the other thirty movies doing that recently. There are more messages than “eat the rich!”, like unpacking how every single person unknowingly suffers under capitalism. What Vack has to say about the internet is truly fresh, creative, and actually funny. It is also clear he sympathizes with the main character, likely thanks to Betsey being his real sister, and wants the best for her even if he understands that writing her a happy ending would be disingenuous. Perhaps someone else will try to make something like www.RachelOrmont.com one day, but there is no way that they could reach the same heights Peter is able to. He is working from a unique vision, with something unique to say, and a unique style of saying it. He is the underrated great of our time, in all forms he produces. 

And speaking of underrated greats, Brown gives my defining performance of the 2020s as Rachel, the defining character of the 2020s. She is mentally stunted by technological overload, parasocially attached to a pop singer, horny to no end, and humiliated and abused by the systems in place to do just that. We may not be held captive by an agency and forced to substitute our brain development for rating performances, but we are all currently slaves to entertainment, technology, cruelty, and at its core… capitalism.

10/10