RIOTUS

Like many things in the modern world that smart apps have ruined, I think dating and relationships are one of the biggest we’ve seen affected. While it feels like it’s always been this way, it wasn’t; there was a time before Tinder and a time after Tinder. An app that always felt like a cishet copy of Grindr, Tinder gamified how meeting people worked. No need to actually talk to people in real life, it’s just a swipe right away. With the rise of the millennial tech bros like Justin Mateen and Sean Rad, who co-founded the app, it also ignores the bad behavior of these men. This film is about Whitney Wolfe Herd, played by Lily James, and her story of helping start Tinder, and after her breakaway from that company, starting the competing app focused on women users called Bumble.

Lily James is very good here as Whitney Wolf Herd, while I’ve seen her briefly when Bumble launched, doing the press rounds. James’ performance got me to empathize with her story. Seeing this smart, affable, and ambitious woman’s journey through tech bro capitalism worked. Herd’s story goes through all the stuff you’d expect from a business movie, yet shows the bad side, as Herd thought these people were her peers, while being between the gaslighting and abuse from these people. While the film isn’t a super cinematic deep dive into the mindset of this person, the movie is believable and can hold your attention.

Myha’la Herrold as Tisha is good, even if she’s not in this that much, as well as not having much to do other than be Herd’s best friend. The character feels like an amalgam of people into one character, but works well at times as a subtle conscious character. Her character does show that Herd does have some blind spots. It is a bit funny to see her in this, as well as being in Industry, and that show is a harsher look at what I would say is a toxic workplace. I wanted more of her and to see just a bit more of that character’s story, but they chose to just focus on Herd.

I’ll say this: Jackson White excels here as Justin Mateen, a terrible, manipulative, and overly privileged boyfriend. To be honest, he never even has a good side shown. He’s just a man-child from the first time he appears in the movie. There is no range or complexity to him. The film wanted to make him look bad, and it was successful. The same with Ben Schnetzer‘s Sean Rad, gaslight gawd in this. There’s nothing much to him here other than being the nice opp for Herd. The film does well with showing how online scrutiny, bullying, and harassment can affect a person. Those are some of the strongest scenes James acts in this whole film.

For the most part, the story is very much rushed through as the first half is very much a Tinder startup movie, and the rest is a Bumble story, and that all tech bros are terrible. It works as an elevated TV movie, and for this story, an introductory biopic on a young person still alive and still writing their story, it’s fine. It’s something to watch on a slow evening or a rainy weekend afternoon. It’s a strong alright to death kind of experience.