Rate Me is a short film focused on a working girl, and it is framed in chapters based on comments left on her website from various users/customers. Through these it plays out various ideas ranging from treatment of sex workers, anonymous internet commentary, IRL boundary blurring, and other ideas. And in this lies the weakness and strength of the film - it has almost too many ideas and too much energy. In this way the film doesn't seem to settle - it has multiple voices and comments, so it does feel like it is jumping around a lot.
The comments often say more about the commentators than about Coco - their needs, their anger, their trolling, their disconnectedness. At the same time the mostly male 'reviewing' of a person is a tough watch - particular where one feels many of the clients are far from dream jobs - what places them above Coco aside from the ability to do so without judgement or consequence themselves? The film moving into less obvious 'comments' (ie mum_and_dad) suggests that it may also be a real deconstruction of what Coco has experienced too - giving layer upon layer behind the professional WG of the final few shots. It is a weaker film for how much it seems to be doing, and the rapid fire way in which it does it; but weirdly it is also a better film for precisely the same qualities.
The comments often say more about the commentators than about Coco - their needs, their anger, their trolling, their disconnectedness. At the same time the mostly male 'reviewing' of a person is a tough watch - particular where one feels many of the clients are far from dream jobs - what places them above Coco aside from the ability to do so without judgement or consequence themselves? The film moving into less obvious 'comments' (ie mum_and_dad) suggests that it may also be a real deconstruction of what Coco has experienced too - giving layer upon layer behind the professional WG of the final few shots. It is a weaker film for how much it seems to be doing, and the rapid fire way in which it does it; but weirdly it is also a better film for precisely the same qualities.
