This film is loosely based on a true story from the book "In the Skin of a Jihadist" by Anna Erelle. It is filmed as a "Screenlife thriller" or "computer screen film." The entire film takes place on a computer screen through facetiming, direct messages, videos, google searches, etc... lots of clicking, screenshots, and opening multiple windows on the laptop (like Searching or Unfriend) and mixes real documentary footage with fictional social media and news posts. The story is about a journalist Amy/Melody who goes undercover on the internet propaganda channels posing as a young Islam convert, in order to attract ISIS recruiters, and investigate how they recruit women to their cause. As she connects with Bilel, a charming ISIS fighter from Syria, and begins talking to him regularly she starts to get pulled deeper into Bilel's world and begins crossing lines...for the sake of the story...or is she falling for him? Although the story is interesting and the acting is decent this won't be for every moviegoer (my husband hates these computer screen films.) The computer searches are fast and it's hard to read everything as she clicks around, opens and closes screens, apps, tabs, etc... lets just say, I used my rewind and pause button a lot... but it did hold my interest and I was curious to see how it ended, which was not disappointing. They close the film with an explanation of what happened to the real journalist. Not perfect, but entertaining and somewhat informational IMHO! Aug 2021.
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