Frankie (Maya Hawke), the antiheroine of Gia Coppola’s Mainstream, is a YouTuber whose main income source is bartending. During one of her demeaning shifts, she gets a text from an acquaintance who calls himself Link (Andrew Garfield). He convinces her to quit bartending and be part of a content creation team, which needs more help. That help comes from Frankie’s ex-coworker Jake (Nat Wolff), and they make YouTube videos that satirize rich influencers. That content is good enough to get the attention of Mark Schwartz (Jason Schwartzman), a money hungry talent agent. Together, they create a game show that takes things too far, humiliating their contestants (Alexa Demie, Casey Frey). The game show attracts the attention of another YouTuber (Johnny Knoxville) and not in a good way.

I’ll be generous towards this film and say that there are kernels of ideas here, reflecting what I know about YouTube. The kind of YouTubers that it’s satirizing, like the Paul Brothers, who were apparently around by this time. Perhaps Coppola Jr. knew what he was going to turn into or maybe that trajectory is easily predictable. Back to Mainstream, there’s some character work in this film, as its big three start out as aimless regular people. They eventually turn into quasi-corporate suits, reminding me of that book cover of grunge history. Sure, maybe everything is the old way from the perspective of the film which comes from the old system.

Mainstream‘s second act has the four characters running a YouTube game show, “Your Phone or Your Dignity”. There are variations to this, but it reaches a turning point where it just turns into Zennial Network. Again, maybe it has a point about how some big YouTubers fail to use their platform despite their intentions. But in criticizing the meanness of social media, it’s becoming the thing it’s trying its hardest to criticize. That’s especially true when it comes to the plot point about Link / Lonesome Rhodes turning into Noone Special. Their game show gets a different variation that damages one of the contestants, Isabella Roberts (Alexa Demie).

In real life, content creators like this know how to be less transparent / more deluded about their meanness or niceness. So ok, if Noone is Mainstream‘s sore thumb, maybe let’s lessen his screen time and give to characters who have smidges of conscience. That leaves Frankie and Jake, whose plot doesn’t necessarily make for a passable film either. At one point, Jake professes his love for Frankie which, I guess there are hints of it beforehand. Most of this film’s target demo is watching it for Andrew Garfield but I’m here for Nat Wolff.  The fact that the film doesn’t give him good material is just one of its huge missteps.

Gia Coppola’s second film Mainstream is available to, well, stream (ooh I love rhymes), among others, on MUBI.