I only recently caught this 2017 dark comedy to build on my taste for Aubrey Plaza, now a confirmed indie queen. Her very oddness is what makes her fascinating, and she has been choosing her projects with that in mind. Certainly “Ingrid Goes West” relies on that: the title character is a trainwreck of a loser who has no conception of what a healthy human relationship is. Directed by Matt Spicer, from a script he co-wrote with David Branson Smith, it starts off with Plaza breaking into a wedding to throw acid in the bride’s face because she wasn’t invited.

After a few months in an institution and, with $60,000 “kiss-off” money from her mother – hoping to never see her again – she sets off to LA to make a new life. Ingrid’s partner in her quest is her smart phone, which she uses the way a sex addict holds a pleasure device. She picks out a social media star, Taylor, who’s rising fast in hits. She devises a way to meet her, pretending she’s a media queen, just like Taylor, and they form a bond.

This part of the film is clever and brisk; light gray with some sunshine. Taylor is married to an artist Ezra, who, unlike his wife, feels bad that he has no talent, either for art or self-promotion. But Taylor only mocks him for that. And Ingrid, sticking to plan, joins in. Her goal was only to be loved by millions. What use is talent for that?

But the light tone of the film soon turns darker. Taylor treats Ingrid like a bestie, thinking she knows the popularity game like her. But Ingrid knows she’s outmatched, just an amateur. She has to lie to Taylor about everything: her money, her many “followers”, even her black “boyfriend” Dan (the genial O’Shea Jackson Jr., recalling the young Forrest Whitaker) – who is really her landlord, a Batman fanatic who is horny enough to let Ingrid manipulate him.

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We know, of course, that Ingrid’s schemes will be exposed, one  by one, and keep watching in expectation. Unfortunately, this is actually painful, because Ingrid’s delusions, while dangerous – which we saw at the beginning with the acid attack – are so human. Every humiliation feeds into Ingrid’s growing hostility towards those she has to lie to. Plaza has made us accomplices as bystanders in the self-destruction of Ingrid, which is a pitiful thing to watch.

The setup for the climax is richly observant and devastatingly dramatic. Taylor’s brother, Nicky, who is a recovering addict, is genuinely perverse, and smarter than both his sister and Ingrid. In a performance of ferocious, yet gleeful nastiness, Billy Magnussen darkens the tone for the remainder of the film. Knowing she is trapped, Ingrid plays victim again to snare the affable Dan into doomed violence.

Except for the final confrontation scene where she confronts Taylor at a Halloween party, by pointing out that she is just as phony as Ingrid, all the actors deliver credible and consistent performances. The problem here is not with Plaza but with Elizabeth Olsen, who plays Taylor. The scene is fuzzy, lacking the impact for a film needing a dramatic climax. Taylor seems stunned, at first, at being called a phony, but real pain never comes through. Olson seems to just shrug it off, while Plaza, even more furiously hostile than ever, seems to be head-butting a brick wall.

But the film caps off with a nice twist. Plaza realizes that she’s reached a dead end and, inescapably, it was her own fault. Almost calmly, she accepts that she has no future in this world, and feels it is only right to express this publicly. But, to her surprise, a different future awaits her.

Afterwards, I couldn’t help thinking of Ingrid’s fate as compared with Buck’s in Mike White’s brilliant “Chuck and Buck“(2000), one of my favorites. But, less than twenty years after Buck, Ingrid’s story seems to take place in a different country. The two characters, both pathetic losers, have totally different outcomes for their misguided quests. At first, Buck bounces around the culture painfully, but winds up, luckily, at a local theatre company where his loony project is seen as a serious work of art. Without knowing it, he had found a way to accommodate his otherwise dangerous delusions within a culture that supports the non-violent expression of them. I couldn’t help thinking how lucky Buck was to be living in America, and what would be his fate anywhere else in the world. Ingrid, on the other hand, lives in a different culture entirely. She finds her delusions welcome in a society that treats them as “normal” reality, part of an entertainment package. The more potentially dangerous, the more exciting, which is better.

Ingrid has reached success at last, and the film ends with her smiling at the viewing audience.

I was not reassured.