Cam takes a sympathetic peak into the world of a webcam performer but quickly turns into a chilling thriller. Suspense filled, this is where we get the chance to be fascinated with a part of life we wouldn’t normally think about.
Alice, played by Madeline Brewer (Black Mirror), performs under the pseudonym ‘Lola’. She is an ambitious cam girl aiming to get to the top of the rankings at FreeGirlsLive.com. She’ll pretty much do whatever the guys want. Including performing a fake suicide. A whole new world of emojis awaits…
And she is getting there until she cannot access her account. We soon learn that her erotic and sleazy identity has been stolen. This opens the floodgates to webcam scenes with her doppelgänger further on in the movie.
Cam is a fast paced thriller following Alice’s pursuit of whoever is responsible for this ‘crime’. She storms through the list of suspects including a jealous competitor ‘Baby’ (Samantha Robinson). Then there are two of her regular, or rather pitiful, super fans.
They are ‘Tinkerboy’ (played by Patch Darragh) and ‘Barney’ (Michael Dempsey). Her theory of Tinkerboy is particularly intriguing as his stalking tendencies start to quickly manifest themselves. Meanwhile, the police dismiss Alice’s complaint with the less than helpful, but nevertheless, obvious advice, ‘Keep off the Internet’.
The movie leads us through the intriguing, and ultimately, sordid life of online sex workers (see Hot Girls Wanted for a documentary on the topic). But it's all done with an edgy performance of the protagonist herself, Alice. Brewer owns the saucy naughtiness of her. Along with playing a run of the mill daughter and sister who finds herself dealing with the family’s reactions when her ‘job’ is embarrassingly revealed.
The climatic ending which we anticipate will lead us to all the answers, doesn’t necessarily do this. But equally it doesn’t detract from the film’s terrifying tech world and its stellar performance by Brewer.
Full marks for not only a compelling narrative about voyeurism, but for making it a balance between the empowerment of the female worker of the web and the sad reality of modern life’s problems.
