The life of an influencer can be awesome: money, trips to exotic places, free merch, admiration. But along with that admiration comes hate and loathing. What secrets are we not being shown in these influencers’ perfect lives? Julia’s 12 million followers can’t help her as she grapples with the wrongs she’s done in her life. In Top Floor, the glitz and glamor of celebrity isn’t what it’s all cracked up to be.
An influencer is kidnapped and trapped in an elevator. The captor tells her that if she truthfully answers all of his questions, she’ll reach the top floor and be granted freedom. If not, she’ll die.
Top Floor, IMDB
Being an influencer, we can only imagine what Julia’s (Justine Wachsberger) day-to-day life entails. As she’s trapped in an elevator, a mysterious voice directs her to answer questions about her past that shed new light into her world. Sexual exploits, dodgy business partnerships, and even murder follow Julia everywhere she goes. The more she struggles to take accountability for her actions, the more the mysterious voice (Akil Wingate) grows angry. Top Floor‘s premise of an essentially-one room escape movie was done well in that it never got boring to watch Julia fight and slowly lose her mind. Little vignettes of those darker times in her life are all we need to put together the problematic puzzle that is her life, placing those pieces just so to make a whole picture of what is wrong with today’s influencer sphere.
And that’s really what Top Floor is about — our attachment to the digital world with no real connections to others, forcing us to become self-serving, uncaring people. Julia is a prime example of what unbridled fame and fortune can do to you. Julia has a monologue at one point that voices this, forcing us to contemplate where we fit in to this cycle.
While I found Top Floor exciting and a movie that kept me guessing, I do have a small critique. Many of the actors’ accents really shine through as not being English-as-a-first-language. Some of the dialog was written slightly “off” as well, making the actors’ already-apparent accents stick out even more. Normally this would be completely fine, but as this story takes place in New York with assumingly-American characters, I noticed it more than I would have liked to.
That said, Top Floor had me sitting on the edge of my seat. I won’t give any spoilers, but there is a massive realization (a twist, you might say) at the end that I absolutely did not see coming. Really, it was a double twist!
Besides giving me time to think about what I would do in Julia’s situation, I had a chance to think about my own attachment to technology. I am in no way an “influencer,” but like me, I’m sure a lot of you out there wouldn’t mind that life. The question is, how far are you willing to go for that level of fame — and can you live with yourself when you get there?
Top Floor is a great watch that is packed with constant action and a lesson too. A fast-paced whodunit, it excels in revealing secrets we all wish we knew and endings that leave our jaws on the floor.
Top Floor is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video. Check it out on Instagram for more!
