'Bad Influencer' Netflix Review: Much Ado About Fake Designer Handbags

Based on my limited knowledge about South African entertainment, it’s largely divided into 2 categories. One half is hyper-focused on the rich, so much so that they forget that there’s a class divide in the country, and the other is filled with stories told from the perspective of the poor, but since they have so much to say in a short period, the end result becomes a mess. The first category has examples like the Umjolo movies, Happiness Is, the Semi-Soet duology, and Blood Legacy. These are filled to the brim with such a gaudy display of opulence that you’ll start feeling uncomfortable and then have an existential crisis about the state of humanity. The second category has examples such as Unseen, Marked, and the topic of today’s discussion, Bad Influencer. Surprisingly enough, all three of them have women as protagonists who have been pushed to the end of their wits by the system, thereby leaving them no other option but to opt for illegal means to make ends meet. While this approach is certainly more relatable as compared to its classist counterpart, does it make for an enjoyable viewing experience overall? Let’s find out.

Creator Kudi Maradzika’s Bad Influencer, co-written by Sydney Dire and Daniel Zimbler, with the episodes being directed by Ari Kruger and Keitumetse Qhali, tells the story of BK. She’s a single mother, and her son, Leo, is a special needs child. Due to the class divide in South Africa, education for kids like Leo is inaccessible to anyone who is not filthy rich. Earning that kind of money through legal means is impossible; hence, BK has to opt for an illegal route, which involves selling fake designer handbags. Thanks to BK’s acute observation skills and her ability to change appearances like she’s Tom Cruise from Mission: Impossible, she manages to establish a small-scale industry where she scams rich women looking to buy designer handbags at a low price rate. Of course, one of her customers catches her red-handed, causing her reputation to plummet. So, she joins hands with an influencer named Pinky to get things back on track. However, since that’s not enough to make the venture profitable, BK seeks help from a loan shark, Bheki, who takes her to a notorious gangster named Alex, as he’s willing to bankroll her project. Due to her association with such high-profile criminals, BK runs the risk of being arrested by Officer Themba, as he has been trying to shut down Alex and his nexus for a while.

Movies and TV shows about people selling fake goods to make a killing are a dime a dozen. But what makes Bad Influencer particularly relevant is that it talks about the scams that are happening through social media. There’s no regulation on what people can buy or sell via DMs. There are way too many people on there with too much pocket money in their hands. Hence, this whole digital marketplace has popped up on the interwebs, where it’s difficult to convince folks to stop falling for con artists and even more difficult to catch said con artists. By having women in the role of swindler as well as those getting swindled, I suppose the writers are commenting on how we are wasting the freedom that feminists had to fight for in order to oil the wheels of capitalism. And while we are busy discussing whether consumerism is a form of women’s empowerment or not (spoiler alert: it’s not), the economic divide widens and threatens to consume everyone without hordes of black money. Now, while all that’s fine and good, it’s the jarring dive into the criminal underworld that ruins everything. It’s like the writers thought that critiquing con artists masquerading as influencers won’t be enough and then went into full Breaking Bad mode, thereby obliterating any room for nuanced discussions.

Bad Influencer looks expensive. The production design, the costume design, the color grading, the make-up design, the lighting, the cinematography, and the editing all come together to make the show quite appealing. And there are quite a few moments of genuine creativity that I could have appreciated if they were presented a little more efficiently. I won’t spoil all of it, but I will talk about this one specific moment from episode 6 that irked me. So, there’s a scene where BK and Pinky witness something horrific, and they are exiting the room where said horrific incident has happened. Now, to show how differently that altercation has affected BK and Pinky, the latter gets to exit the room pretty normally; as in, she just walks out like a normal person. However, a double dolly is used for BK. A double dolly is a technique (which is used a lot by Spike Lee) where the actor and the camera are placed on separate dollies or sometimes on the same dolly to make it seem like the character is floating. And it’s the perfect way to underscore how traumatized BK is, but that scene is ruined by the title card, which completely obscures the double dolly effect! Why would you put all that effort into pulling off such old-school in-camera trickery and then ruin it? It just makes no sense to me; none at all. And like I said, this is one instance of the crew shooting themselves in the foot; there are several more, and they eventually pile up to make the viewing experience really tiring.

The performances in Bad Influencer are great across the board. Jo-Anne Reyneke and Cindy Mahlangu do most of the heavy lifting, and their commitment to making their respective characters as tangible as possible should be applauded. The same can be said about Kamohelo Pule and Zozibini Tunzi, despite their limited screentime. Thapelo Mokoena, Modise Motaung, Vincent Mahlape-Sekuba, and Hamilton Dhlamini are restricted by the cliche writing, but they manage to infuse their characters with enough gravitas to make them feel like three-dimensional people. Emmanuel Castis, Julia Anastasopoulos, Nat Ramabulana, Charlie Bouguenon, Brendon Daniels, Aubrey Poo, and the rest of the supporting cast are pretty good. But is all this enough to make the show memorable? I don’t think so. I suppose if the narrative was more focused on the social media elements and less on the hard crime stuff, it would have managed to stand out in the sea of content that tackles the downsides of the internet, the horrors of the criminal underworld, or both. Now, I am afraid the show will be forgotten by the end of this week. The creators clearly want to return for a second season, and if Unseen was able to pull off that feat despite an abysmal first season, I guess there’s some hope for them, but I won’t be holding my breath for the Season 2 greenlight signal if I were you.