The Hater

The Hater (2020) comes from Poland and treats social media manipulation as a thriller. It is by Jan Komasa, known for Corpus Christi. Tomasz is expelled from law school and takes a job at a reputation management firm. The work involves running fake accounts, targeting people, organising hatred, and corroding a political campaign from the inside. He is extremely good at it. What makes the film uncomfortable is that it shows the method step by step: which sentence goes where, which bait is dropped into which community. The story is fiction. The technique is not. The ending recalls a real event. In 2019 the mayor of Gdańsk was stabbed to death on stage. The film was made afterwards and the connection is not accidental. Maciej Musiałowski's Tomasz is not likeable, and yet the audience walks alongside him for a long stretch before noticing. That is the film's real trick. It runs 136 minutes. Good for: political thrillers, films about social media, and Eastern European cinema. Less good for: there is violence and suicide, and the ending is hard. This is not a hopeful film.