‘Vengeance’ Review – B.J. Novak’s Directorial Debut Investigates the Ethics of Storytelling in the Digital Age

What are the repercussions of the stories that we tell? So much about art and its culture is about the creator’s intentions, the craft behind it, and the effect it has on its audience. Every online intellectual is quick to think of the broader implications behind every creative decision, all in service of understanding what makes a good story. But what about the people outside of these spaces? How do these stories affect them? The unfortunate reality is that, in consuming docu-styled storytelling in the digital age, we lose sight of their story.

Vengeance dares to ask if some of us are equipped to reckon with this. In his unpredictable directorial debut, which he also writes and stars in, The Office star B.J. Novak takes the world of podcasting and uses it as a springboard to investigate the ethics of storytelling in the digital age. Film fans have already been reckoning with exploitation in art thanks to Jordan Peele’s Nope, and while Novak’s satirical comedy may seem like a suggestion out of left field, they both tackle similar themes. Vengeance is equally a story about who gets left behind in our pursuit of engrossing entertainment, this time through the lens of southern hospitality and true crime.

Novak is Ben Manalowitz, a writer for The New Yorker and an aspiring podcaster. When he tries pitching his story about “why America is really divided” to successful podcast producer Eloise, played by Issa Rae, she is quick to define Ben’s problem; it’s not actually a story. Stories are about people, as it turns out, and “America is its people,” says Eloise. But Ben is only interested in expressing his own ideas and sounding smart. Not exactly someone well-equipped.

After an empty hookup that night, one of many that Ben bounces between every week, he receives a call from the family of a former hookup, Abby, telling him that she’s dead. Her family imagined them as closer than they actually were and, pressured to save face with her grieving family, flies down to Texas and attends her funeral. Her brother, Ty, played by a hilariously charming Boyd Holbrook, is convinced she was murdered, despite her death being attributed to a drug overdose. Ben, thinking he’s delusional, sees this as his story, full of big ideas about denial and delusion. It isn’t until he begins production on his podcast that he realizes Ty might actually be right.

Vengeance begins with humble aspirations. Novak is playing a fairly stock archetype, not too far of a stretch from The Office but enough to make it feel unrealistic that he’s some kind of catch. It’s a shaky foundation to start, and the film’s low-budget, made-for-streaming cinematography (despite actually getting a theatrical release from Focus Features) makes it feel like you’re watching an SNL sketch. The whole story really feels like that from the onset; it’s an admittedly bizarre hook for a film and, combined with its low-hanging jokes about trigger-happy Texans and Mexican drug cartels, it all feels a bit tame.

But then, through a remarkable series of twists and turns, the story starts to unravel its many complex layers. To spoil any of them would be a disservice to those who are interested in seeing the film following this review but, needless to say, nothing is as it seems.

The first surprise is the most basic one––he kinda likes it down there. He comes to appreciate Abby’s family, filled with plenty of colorful characters including an outspoken grandmother and a fame-obsessed sister, played by Disney star Dove Cameron. Holbrook as Ty ends up being the standout, with an incredible comedic delivery and a full commitment to his character’s over-the-top but charming sensibility. Through their hospitality and willingness to be recorded for Ben’s show, many of his preconceived notions are shattered. He’s beginning to actually become invested himself; when Eloise claims they have more than enough material, she tells Ben to come home, but he refuses.

But that’s the easy part. It’s a road tred by countless stories before, and Vengeance knows this, thankfully. After a number of genuinely unpredictable revelations in the film’s second half, Ben is forced to thoroughly re-evaluate his role as a storyteller, because it suddenly isn’t as simple as a white dude with a podcast. Maybe he’s co-opting the life of a woman he barely knew. Maybe he is infiltrating the privacy of a private community. Maybe he is not the person to tell their story. 

It’s a lot to reckon with, and while the film never clinches a singular thesis, you can tell it has all of this on its mind in a moment where nobody seems to be thinking ahead in the same way. If the world had been given just a bit more political texture, and had Novak dared to be more specific in who and what he was interrogating, it would have been far more damning and welcomingly so.

In a world rocked by the likes of Tiger King and Making a Murderer, Vengeance is one of the few, if only cinematic critiques of our culture’s obsession with true crime. They are engrossing stories, yes, but their commodification of working class communities as entertainment silences the victims of these tragedies. In other words, they are about stories, not people. Novak understands that, and his directorial debut stands above true crime’s manufactured and endless barrage of content in defiance.

Vengeance is now playing in theaters courtesy of Focus Features. 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GT1jFsNnPw]