Aubrey Plaza stalks social media guru in ‘Ingrid Goes West’

When is the talented Aubrey Plaza, recently seen as a sex-crazed, foul-mouthed 14th century nun in “Little Hours,” going to have her breakout film? The former co-star of “Parks and Recreation” has made her mark in so many not very memorable films that I just assumed she had a shot at major stardom. Alas, “Ingrid Goes West,” her latest and most standout showcase, is not going to be it, although the film has its moments, especially before it wears out its welcome.

A comedic, digitized variation on a theme of “Single White Female,” the film tells the cautionary (?) tale of Instagram, Facebook and Twitter addict Ingrid Thorburn (Plaza), who goes to a wedding and sprays the bride with pepper spray in opening scenes and lands in an asylum.

After her mother dies, leaving her $60,000, Ingrid goes proverbially West, where she becomes obsessed with internet “influencer” Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen), a young woman whose perfect self, perfect life and perfect taste in clothes, food, grooming, diet, et al. is not nearly as perfect as it looks.

In addition to being a greedy shill for the products she endorses, Taylor has a hunky husband, Ezra (Wyatt Russell), who is a talentless “artist,” whose “art” is a joke and whose only sale is to Ingrid, who’s trying to ingratiate herself with Taylor.

Ingrid has rented a small apartment in Venice Beach, Calif., from Dan Pinto (a terrific O’Shea Jackson Jr.), a surly Batman fanatic and wannabe actor, whose only rule is “no pets.” Ingrid is so eager to find favor with Taylor she kidnaps Taylor’s dog and then returns it, pretending to have found it on the street and taken care of it.

The film works while we focus on crazy Ingrid. But once we realize that almost all of the other characters are phonies and that the film depicts all internet obsessives as narcissistic losers, interest fades.

Director Matt Spicer and co-writer David Branson Smith, who won a screenwriting award at Sundance, where awards have been known to go to the wrong movies, sink in their own bile.

“Ingrid Goes West” feels very au courant with its graphic hashtags and emojis. Plaza brings her trademark mercurial lunacy. But Ingrid becomes one-note, and after you realize the entire film is a misanthropic exercise full of loathsome characters, it loses its appeal.

Billy Magnussen deserves some kind of kudos for making Taylor’s unbelievably awful brother Nicky Sloane the film’s most memorable character. As obnoxious as he is, his loyalty to his sister redeems him, but not the film.

(“Ingrid Goes West” contains profanity, drug use and sexually suggestive language.)