It’s funny. I’m in the middle of writing this review with my phone sitting out in front of me on the desk. It lights up; a Twitter notification. It vibrates with an email. A little banner notification briefly illuminates the screen to tell me someone has said something about someone on Facebook. Meanwhile, the cursor flashes back at me on a mostly empty page, egging me on. Engage with me, it seems to be wryly saying. Do something. I dare you. Because no matter where you look, it can sometimes feel like you’re alone in a sea of things just demanding your attention. People, apps and, yes, the blinking cursor, just wanting to get a rise out of you.

The experience of being online is a dual-edged sword. You meet wonderful people who connect with your work and you can build relationships and colleagues and contacts halfway across the world. But while it can bring us together, it can also divide us. As The Columnist opens, Femke Boot (Katja Herbers) is at a TV talk show debating online trolls.

The target of a few massive bullying moments because she penned an article about Zwarte Piet/Black Peter, she’s no stranger to the more evil side of Social Media. She’s been called disgusting names, received death threats and had anonymous commenters stating they’d host parties if she were to get AIDS. The other guest on the show is horror novelist Steven Dood (Bram van der Kelen) who frequently interrupts her and basically acts as the antagonist or devil’s advocate in the conversation.

While dealing with the massive online vitriol, she also is trying to pen her new book that’s late and her publisher continues to poke her about missing deadlines. And then there’s her neighbor who keeps hammering and pounding and sawing, creating an unworkable space for her at her home, particularly when she’s still obsessed with simultaneously reading and getting worked up at all the horrible things being written about her. Then she realizes that one of the trolls is actually her next door neighbor...the one doing all the pounding. With a target in mind, Femke has had enough of being the brunt of abuse. First, she takes an axe to his newly built fence. But that doesn’t really quell her writer’s block or her anger.

So she pushes him off their shared roof.

It’s a shocking moment and it happens with such nonchalance that it forced a laugh from me...which was followed up with Femke cutting off his middle finger as a trophy that she stuffs in a box of frozen peas. Immediately, things improve for her. The noises plaguing her day and night are gone. She feels a sense of freedom. Most importantly, her writer’s block is gone. But once she gets the taste of retribution, she finds herself on a real-world anti-troll campaign that soon becomes an unending downward spiral of bloodied frying pans, shears, knives, electrocution and worse. A Dexter for the online troll.

The Columnist is a whip-smart and caustically witty cautionary tale about the duality of people. Written by Daan Windhorst and directed by Ivo van Aart, it taps into the impotent rage that builds when you’re the target of a hate machine. While it directly deals with feminine rage and what it’s like to be a woman on the internet, it’s a universal and prescient concept that can easily be applied to any marginalized voice trying to carve a space online. Femke begins the movie begging for civility; the idea that we can have different views, recognize the differences and have an adult conversation. It’s a laughably naive desire as we see how unending and vicious anonymous people can be, hiding behind memes and fake names and avatars. When Femke faces one of her victims and he responds “I am kind! Just ask anyone” it shows the dichotomy of living your life online.

The script explores this duality with people in Femke’s life. First, there’s Steven Dood who verbally sparred with her on the talk show and then later confides it was just to sell more books. In person, Steven is kind and charming and as he starts a relationship with Femke, she questions how he could write such horrible things in his novels and yet be a good person. It’s a duality; a way to get out anger or to deal with internal fears.

Then there’s Anna (Claire Porro), who is a perfect foil to Femke’s downward spiral. Like her mother, Anna butts heads with the patriarchy in the form of her headmaster (Harry van Rijthoven) who doesn’t like her fights for free speech that tend to use the word “fuck” in them. She becomes the most intriguing foil to her mother as she goes about forming fundraisers and non-violent events to raise awareness of the need for freedom of speech. It culminates in an acerbic speech on the need to complete freedom of speech, spoken over scenes of her mother hunting her new troll with a rifle.

Katja Herbers is a revelation as Femke. Her deadpan delivery and expressive face belies the violence she inflicts on others. From the little moments, like the jittery tick-tick-tick of tapping nails as she tries to not read the comments to the more dramatic moments of facing her trolls in person, Herbers performance never feels inauthentic. Her eyes are so expressive and as she becomes more and more focused on her vengeful task, The Columnist is evocative of Mary Harron’s American Psycho.

At one point Femke literally walks down an open street in the middle of a day, gun perched on her shoulder, a delightful twinkle in her eye as she says hello to a passerby before ringing the bell of her soon-to-be-murdered target’s house. It’s a darkly comedic moment exploring how she’s become as detached from reality as the trolls she’s hunting.

A perfect mix of the dark, hyper-reality she now exists in with a critique of social media culture; an exploration of the circular life, death and rebirth of troll culture. The film culminates with such a pitch perfect ending that raises a glass to the agony and splendor of the internet, encapsulated in one bloody moment. The Columnist is a reminder that If thou gaze long into the Internet, the Internet will also gaze into thee. Hero or Villain? Does it matter?

It’s just another day on the Internet.

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