In the last few years, a strange but recognisable character has emerged on social media feeds: the lifestyle influencer. Preying on our voyeuristic tendencies, some of them stand at the junction of substance and salaciousness. Every trending topic becomes an opportunity to package their grandstanding as introspection, and monetise their exhibitionism. It’s an endless repository for ‘content’, and it is only a matter of time before the dopamine spikes (surrounding engagement) begin to sidestep the ethical quagmires. I was reminded of lifestyle influencers a lot while watching Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime, because before one could peek into people’s lives through phones, there was reality TV. Even though To Catch A Predator (on NBC) started out as an exposé on creepy men soliciting sex from minors, the quest for ratings and well-known host Chris Hansen’s ambition, turned a news piece into a muggy, diseased version of the American dream.Real-life Hansen is considering legal action against Oppenheim’s film, which dispels any suspicion whether this is a hagiography. Set in 2006, the film shows Chris Hansen (Robert Pattinson) around the time when the show has picked up momentum. We hear the host memorising his lines in a green room (in front of a mirror), most of which are dirty text messages sent by men to a decoy (an adult man/woman, pretending to be a teenager). He has the intensity of an actor about to go on stage, which is partially true. After the alleged pervert is invited into a home, and settles in for what has been established as a sexual encounter (through questions like: ‘Did you get the condoms?’), Hansen emerges. What is supposed to be a sobering admission of depravity, becomes a giddying spectacle of public humiliation in the hands of its host. “What would have happened if I wasn’t here?”, “You see how this looks, right?” Pattinson asks, like his real-life counterpart, which has become the subject of memes.For those who didn’t follow the news cycle around the controversial NBC show, To Catch A Predator inspired a polarising discourse. While one set of the audience was dazzled by the show’s ability to out probable sexual predators, the other was agonised by its mentality to carry out vigilante justice by luring individuals using an assortment of fakery, including cookies and adult actors playing the part of teenagers. Apart from having Hansen’s POV, Oppenheim’s film is seen through an objective lens by actor Dan Plum (Skylar Gisondo), who is desperate to get a speaking credit to his name, which will qualify him for a Screen Actor’s Guild (SAG) card, helping him find agent, and assuring minimum SAG wage and health insurance. Gisondo is marvellous as Dan, Hansen gives him the nickname of Decoy Dan, earnest and sincere about the job. He watches an episode of Billy Bob Thornton in Inside The Actors Studio to prepare for his new assignment, completely unaware about what it’s going to entail. It’s steady money, but Dan is caught off guard in his first episode – too stunned to respond to producer Andie Bender’s (Merrit Weaver) questions about how he’s doing. A word for singer Phoebe Bridgers, who is excellent in the cameo as the other decoy, playing both teenage boys and girls, and showing Dan the ropes. Like many media satires (especially TV news) – Network (1974), Nightcrawler (2014), Christine (2016) etc – even Primetime showcases the moral decay of these decision-making rooms. Like when Rene Russo’s character puts it in Nightcrawler, “If it bleeds, it leads”, and similarly when To Catch A Predator is bumped up to the primetime slot, to compete with a fictional TV series (Lost), the makers feel the pressure to amp up the spectacle. The care and caution is suddenly replaced with the anxiety to find more eccentric and high-profile ‘characters’. Along with that, Hansen’s appearances, when he catches these men in a sticky spot, become all the more eccentric like he’s going out to enact a play in each episode, wringing out the second-hand embarrassment.“In the good old days, there used to be a pillory post in every town where people would be flogged for their crimes,” Hansen tells Dan, in one scene. “Today, there’s a television,”. The spectacle of seeing another person ‘caught’ reassures the audience that they’re better people. It also taps into a dark impulse, where people relish the deliverance of ‘justice’ because it gives them a way to feel in control, especially when everything around is in a state of disarray. Hansen, a self-styled arbiter to dispense social justice, is far from a hero. He’s shown to be a philanderer, even getting caught by a gossip website. Pattinson understands this dichotomy, and plays it incredibly well. This is the kind of risky, star-making performance Pattinson’s filmography is riddled with. Playing Hansen as an insufferable, self-serious method actor, who dubs a line of his voiceover multiple times (much to his producers’ amusement) Pattinson portrays him as a vain, self-obsessed ‘performer’. Pattinson’s Hansen has one eye on ‘serious’ journalism [established with an NBC colleague, covering Iraq at the time], while the other is on doing whatever is needed to increase and sustain the ratings of his show. It informs his personality contradictions, as someone who likens his work with a war correspondent, and yet acts like a frivolous game show host on TV.Oppenheim, who made his debut with 2024 documentary Spermworld, uses the tools to blur the lines between documentary and film. We see the show taking place like it would on TV, and yet he routinely cuts to the objective POV of the characters, Hansen, the accused, Andie and Dan. There’s an oozing darkness between all of Hansen’s crew, where they seem to be enjoying it — especially the way Andie switches on when a crisis hits in the film’s climax. Dan, who is in denial about what he’s helping with, eventually comes to terms with the real-world consequences.Primetime’s thesis that all people are perverts – and all corporations can exploit it for profit – isn’t particularly novel. However, Oppenheim signals it as an urgent cautionary tale for the social media era, where one no longer has to wait for a scheduled episode. It’s available in our palms, 24 hours a day, and everyone seems to have embraced being both a performer and an audience. As the world burns around us, the misery of others becomes our safe haven, and also our prison.*Primetime is playing in theatres