Have you ever stumbled upon something online that you couldn’t shake off? Occasionally, a video pops up in our feeds that is alarmingly violent, and before we can look away, it’s etched in our memories. Now, picture if your occupation demanded you to watch without blinking. You’d be a content moderator, earning a meager wage to view unsettling videos and determine if they align with your company’s dubious standards. This is the grim reality presented in the striking thriller American Sweatshop.

Riverdale’s Lili Reinhart stars as Daisy, a young woman who dedicates her days to deciding whether to approve or remove videos on an unnamed social media network. Her role entails examining videos of strangulations, deadly falls, and worse, to ascertain if they comply with the platform’s terms of service. Shaking it off is supposedly part of the job, according to a corporate culture that dehumanizes individuals. However, when Daisy witnesses an especially horrific video involving a woman, a hammer, and a nail, she can’t simply move on. Tormented by the image, she must uncover the truth about the video’s authenticity and the identity of those involved, no matter the cost.

Dark and character-focused, American Sweatshop will keep you on edge as you await the next twist.

American Sweatshop delves into the cruelty of the corporate internet.

“Remember, we’re not censors; we’re moderators,” states Daisy’s boss (Christiane Paul), smoothly articulating corporate buzzwords that profess to uphold freedom of expression while evading ethical accountability. It’s the type of rhetoric you might expect from a tech CEO. Yet here, she coaches her anxious moderators, clarifying when certain slurs can be approved instead of erased, without uttering a single slur herself. This illustrates the clever maneuver American Sweatshop employs, preventing it from descending into the filth it critiques.

Director Uta Briesewitz, recognized for her contributions to popular shows like Severance, Black Mirror, and Stranger Things, comprehends tension, understanding what the audience ought to witness and what should remain unseen. Like the renowned horror thriller Red Rooms, American Sweatshop refrains from sensationalizing inhumane online videos. Instead, Matthew Nemeth’s screenplay conveys the concept through video titles like “fetus in blender” or depicting office workers having breakdowns, with one suggesting they’d be better off if he set the office ablaze.

For the video that haunts Daisy, Briesewitz offers snippets, alluding to essential details, such as a woman on a filthy mattress and an elderly man observing as an assailant in snakeskin boots raises a hammer. We’ll hear the woman scream. The terror arises not from viewing the video but from the apathetic responses of some characters, including a police officer Daisy approaches for assistance.

American Sweatshop embodies a Severance-style wit.

Beyond the troubling enigmas at their core, Severance and American Sweatshop both uncover dark humor in the corporate indifference that subjugates Daisy and her colleagues. Nonetheless, this film is less exaggerated than the popular Apple TV+ series, making its impact more pronounced.

Beyond the harsh supervisor of this “sweatshop,” there’s a futile counselor (Tim Plester) who provides nothing but nine minutes of break time and half-hearted coping mechanisms. When concerns arise about employees fainting or having meltdowns during shifts, a grumpy executive grumbles about resources before proposing a morale-boosting event, like an after-hours pub gathering with a cash bar. This late-stage capitalism joke hits hard because it feels too genuine.

Straddling the line of dark comedy and tension, Reinhart’s co-stars deliver strong support. Daisy undergoes a psychological decline, shifting from smoking pot and meditating to navigate work horrors to pursuing vigilante justice. Daniela Melchior portrays her stoic work best friend whose candid remarks are often shocking. Joel Fry brings a volatile energy as the office bad boy on the verge of an explosion. Jeremy Ang Jones embodies wide-eyed innocence as the office rookie, so naive that colleagues wager he’ll be the next to crack.

Thematically, they illustrate a continuum of employee exhaustion. Yet, through hushed support at desks, heartfelt conversations during lunch breaks, or drunken admissions on nights out, they create a network of relationships that feels genuine, illustrating how ordinary the backdrop for trauma can be, with the worst of humanity just a click away.

Through its humor, American Sweatshop implores us not to look away from the suspense as Daisy steps away from her screen to confront real-world malevolence. Yet, Nemeth steers clear of the polished Hollywood conventions of a vigilante justice narrative. Daisy doesn’t transform into a brilliant strategist or master hacker destined for a climactic showdown. She stumbles and makes poor choices, each feeling authentic, echoing the slippery slope of an internet rabbit hole. One peculiar discovery pulls us in deeper, causing us to lose track of time and what we sacrifice as we delve. The final revelation is both horrifying and gratifying.

American Sweatshop is an engaging and thrilling film that penetrates your psyche, creeping up your spine to warp your mind.