4 / 5
One of the more intriguing films brought to the table by Netflix this year, The Hater tells the story of Tomasz, a narcissistic, disgraced law student who joins an internet troll farm. His love for a girl goes unrequited and her politically-immersed family that finance him end up disowning him. This feeds his dedication to causing turmoil amongst political candidates using Facebook groups and fake accounts. Young Tomasz continuously refuses to realise these online ways of venting his frustrations from isolation and rejections are bound to have very violent and very real consequences outside the web.
Maciej Musiałowsk does a fantastic job at portraying a power-hungry secluded internet genius with his vast array of suppressed emotions creating a believable ticking-time-bomb sociopath similar to characters seen in films like Taxi Driver.
This helps bring the film’s script and Jan Komasa’s great direction to life. It deals with complex relationships and entangled scenarios while having enough breathing space for performances and cinematography to take effect, making the intense and even morbid feel of scenes take full effect as more foreshadowing to the inevitable explosion of violence accumulates.
This is a suspenseful antihero film with well-layered characters that delves beyond simple concepts of ‘internet = bad’ and more into the consequences of an unawareness of power abuse with strong performances and engaging dialogue.