Profile

Russian-born filmmaker, Timur Bekmambetov, has pretty much single-handedly brought on the current trend of films that take place largely on computer screens and video combination.  The past few years, he was the lead producer of the Unfriended horror films, as well as the excellent thriller, Searching, which still stands as the very best example of this low budget genre.  This time, he takes on directing duties with Profile, which not only creates a gripping narrative out of a very bare bones subject, but manages to be just as intense as some thrillers with probably 10 times the budget this film had.

With this film, he is using the real-life story of Anna Errelle for inspiration.  Errelle is a French journalist who went undercover, and struck up a relationship on line with a Syrian terrorist in order to learn how they were luring European women into leaving their lives behind, and traveling to Syria in order to become sex slaves or suicide bombers.  Her actions, and the article she published with what she had learned, caused her to be targeted by ISIS, and she has had to live under an assumed identity ever since.  And while the film itself is not based on the actual person, it still has a sense of realism that makes the film incredibly tense.  Errelle is represented here by a London-based reporter named Amy (Valene Kane), who finds herself drawn into the world of terrorism during her video and text conversations with British-born ISIS fighter, Abu Bilel Al-Britani (Shazad Latif).  She hopes to learn how the militants are attracting teenage girls and young women, and winds up getting in further over her head than she could imagine.

Almost from their first conversation, Abu is clearly trying to charm her, and convince her to come to Syria to live with him.  He promises her the life of a Princess, where she will want for nothing.  Amy knows that she is being manipulated the entire time, but the more time they spend chatting in order for her to get research, she actually finds herself somewhat drawn into his world, and the romantic things that he tells her.  Watching Amy beginning to let her guard down with each conversation is terrifying in a quiet way, and she even begins to genuinely grieve when she thinks he may have been killed in a bomb blast.  Some may question the idea of a seemingly-intelligent woman falling for his obvious manipulations.  But, when you think of how many women have pledged their loves to killers on death row, the idea does not seemed so far fetched.

That is the idea from where Profile gets its intensity.  Amy has a stable relationship with a fiance (Morgan Watkins), and they are looking for an apartment they can share together early on in the film.  And yet, as she is drawn deeper into this world and this fake profile of a 20-year-old woman who is a converted Muslim, she starts to ignore elements of her actual life.  Her editor behind the article, Vick (Christine Adams), can see what is happening, and tries to warn Amy, but we can sense that she is already in too deep when the warnings come.  Like Bekmambetov's other films, this one hardly leaves the computer screen, and is told entirely through Skype video calls, text messages, and emails to drive the plot.  This is not only a stylistic challenge, but a great challenge to the cast, as they have to act like this is all happening.  More so than in a "found footage" movie, they have to sell the realism.

And that's what this movie gets right.  In something like this, you can't get away with made up technology or computers doing things they can't do in real life, like you can in some films.  We have to believe that we are watching everyday conversations, and be drawn in by the story that's developing, and I think that's this film's strongest aspect.  Both of the lead actors do a great job of selling their characters as genuine people, particularly Valene Kane, who must switch back and forth between her true persona of Amy, and the one she creates online of a young woman named Melody.  As we see these two sides to her kind of merge, and Amy starts to believe in the words of this man, it's chilling to see the line between fantasy and reality blur right there on the screen.

Profile is probably not a movie you need to see on the big screen in order to enjoy, and might even work better if you watch it on your laptop.  Regardless, however you see it, this is an effective thriller that has an easy way of drawing you in, just like how the main character gets drawn into her fictional profile life she creates for herself. 

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