The Hilarious Movie That Savages New York’s Rich Momfluencers

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The giggle-inducing one-liners fly fast and furious in the new movie Influenced, observations about influencers and image-obsessed moms in the Upper East Side that run like a ticker-tape of shrewd, savage comedy. But there’s one in particular that made me guffaw so loudly I nearly missed the rest of the scene.

It killed me. That’s, like, hot dogs and hamburgers, folks. When I mention how much the line tickled me during an interview with Kargman, she’s giddy. “I’m so glad you noticed that,” she says. “No one notices it! I love that joke.”

It’s simply the tragic fata-- in me, I respond. I’m the kind of person who maps out the hors d’oeuvres-consuming strategy at a cocktail party with the intensity and care that Magellan might chart the navigational course for an expedition. Kargman and I are kindred spirits in that way. “I always stand by the door where the cute cater waiters come out,” cutting them off at the pass, she says. That’s the move!

I first met Kargman over a decade ago, when she created and starred in the Bravo scripted comedy series Odd Mom Out, based on her experience interacting with the momzillas flocking around the gilded age of the Upper East Side, where she was raising her family.

Kargman’s outsider perspective, which has earned the moniker “The Bard of the Upper East Side,” wasn’t because she didn’t belong there; her father is the former president of Chanel, Drew Barrymore is her ex-sister-in-law, and she scored cameos in Influenced from the likes of Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow by asking for favors at one of the ritzy parties her social circle throws. It’s because she seems to have the gene that is missing from so much of the cohort at school pickup: rationality. An ability to see the ludicrousness in so much of the behavior she was witnessing.

Influenced turns that sharp eye on how digital dependency and social media addiction add further poison to a chalice already at the brim with a cocktail of narcissism, plastic surgery, flaunting of wealth, social climbing, and competitiveness. Ahead of the film’s May 8 release, I had a chat with Kargman, filled with her quick wit and scathing humor. I’m still chuckling.

Was there a specific moment or interaction you had on social media that tipped you in a direction that inspired you to make this?

It wasn’t social media. It was more just women I encountered. Not full Dzanielle types, but elements of some of the flash, and the trying to be fabulous all the time, and posting constantly. This sounds so c---y, but at first, some of them, I just thought, “Yuck. They’re so flashy. They’re very, like, plastic surgerized. These people aren’t for me. Their kids are probably, like, spoiled little twats.” And then I got to know them better, and I realized they actually really love their kids. And a lot of the very curated patina is just covering up insecurities that they may have, like a lot of people. I learned to sort of not judge books by covers, which I tend to do a lot.

We first met when you were making Odd Mom Out. Was part of this project born out of feeling that way with that group of people? Did you feel disconnected from what had become this new kind of culture among mothers where you’re raising your children?

Yeah. My kids are grown-ups now, so I didn’t feel the same vulnerability as with Odd Mom Out. I mean, that character is me, but at 28. So I felt very much like I had this whole personality and someone shook the Etch A Sketch, because now I’m just someone’s mom. I had to kind of start over, and I was steeped in this very rarefied milieu of people who were very type A, and had a very type A approach to motherhood, and created these yardsticks to compare everything. I feel like now I’m still on the outside of the momfluencer world, but kind of through my kids, who will scroll through and show me s--t, just by osmosis, I have a portal into their lives.

A horrifying portal.

The difference is that I feel like when Odd Mom Out was made, even 10 years ago, it was at the beginning of social media. People cared about looking good or feeling fabulous, whatever that means. But now that you’re providing everybody with keyholes into your over-the-top 50th birthday, sponsored deals, or the oval windows of your private jet, it’s just more of an a--holic layer to this.

Did you just use the word “a--holic”? Like, like the adjective version of “a-----e”?

Yes. It’s so much more in-your-face because it’s choosing to be in your face. That is a choice to post your oval private jet windows, and I think it’s a gross choice.

That’s actually something I didn’t think about, how back when we were talking with Odd Mom Out, that culture of showing off the biggest bat mitzvah party or the grand vacations that you take with your kids was what you talked about during school pickup. That was to impress the people within that gilded cage. But now it’s to impress everybody.

Yeah. There are people in, like, rectangular red states in the middle who are following Upper East Side moms. They want to peek behind the brocade curtain into that life. It’s very aspirational and voyeuristic, but that is not for me.

I’m curious how the people in your life who are sort of momfluencers feel or felt about you doing this kind of project that’s deep-diving into what they do.

They’ve all been super nice and supportive, and I think that’s because they know I’m not mean-spirited. I think all of the books I’ve done, or Odd Mom Out, as a satire, so it’s that funhouse mirror to their world. It’s not a machete. I’m really not out to make anyone feel like s--t. It’s done with love.

One of the reassuring things about the film, too, is that while it is about digital culture, you do see these women getting manicures and attending charity events together. They are still interacting as humans. It’s not the sort of digital dystopia I think a lot of us are afraid of.

Yeah. I mean, I still marvel at, you know, a dinner or a lunch that people pull out their phones in the middle of dinner. I think it’s so f---ing rude.

One of the things that I think has changed a lot since we were talking during the Odd Mom Out time is that the obsession with weight, looks, and aesthetics has, I think, come out of the closet in the age of Ozempic and med spas. Everyone is just talking more openly about what they’re doing to achieve the unrealistic body image. Have you noticed that in your social circle?

Oh, totally. Well, I don’t know if it’s openness. It’s now everyone’s talking about it, but people are totally still closeted about their shit. I have been in situations where someone says hi to us, and we literally don’t know who it is. It’s like Metamorphosis. Whether they’re on the jab or got a new schnoz or a really tight facelift. Some people look great, and some people look horrendous to me. It just looks scary when they’re so transformed. It’s like, why would you f--- your face up like that? I think filler’s the devil. People have, like, these labia lips.

It’s so bad.

I really can’t get over it. I like a thin lip. We’re not all Angelina Jolie. And you’re not fooling anyone if suddenly you have, like, a vagina face. You didn’t have those lips yesterday. Why do you have a labia majora up on your puss?

Fillers have infiltrated the Hollywood hunk community. It’s really depressing. Ryan Gosling and Justin Theroux look terrible.

What is that?! I just noticed it, too! What is up with man filler? I think it looks serial-killer-adjacent.

There’s a brutally honest joke in the movie where everyone is raving about a new diet program book where the recommendation is, “Eat less food.” That’s the diet.

That’s real. There are anorexia coaches up here that charge you, oh my god, like $5,000 a month retainers, and you have to do four months minimum. And basically, it’s anal bulimia. They give you light crackers that, like, you can eat anything you want on it, cheese, whatever you want. And it’s anal bulimia. You, like, diarrhea it out. What is that?

How happy were you when you came up with the name of the nail polish color, Tinkerbell’s Labia?

I was really happy. Now, my eyes at 51 are not what they once were, but I used to sit while I was waiting for my turn, reading all of [the color names], and they’re literally, like, sexual. Someone is sitting in Essie headquarters, copywriting these names, who is, like, really horny.

I don’t want to spoil the ending, but I do want to talk about the messaging of the film. There’s a version of this that is a comedy just skewering influencers. But there’s a nuanced conversation about the class divide, the unhoused, and even the billionaire tax. Why did you want to bring those conversations into this?

Thank you for that question. That’s the best question. I have to give credit to my writing partners. And so I have to tell you, like, that was all Carol [Ray Hartsell] and her husband. They created Gary [the unhoused character], and I’m so glad they did because, as you said, it really does give heart. And I wasn’t out to have, like, the gravitas laced in with the fluff. I think of it as like when moms hide the chicken, hide the protein in the pasta. I didn’t want people to be hit over the head with it. Having Gary there is so much more real. Because there are people in $50 million apartments, they still have unhoused people on their block. They still see poverty, and there’s still a huge wealth divide.

There’s a line in the film about Dzanielle being the Sesame Street of that social circle, bridging together those different classes to make the community better. Do you consider yourself in that role in your circle?

OK. So yes. I’m gonna be real with you. I’m not, like, hanging out on the corner in a cardboard box with homeless people.

Understandable.

But I have really, really close friends who are in the sort of working-class level of the Upper East Side, and they’re like family to me. They actually are my first line of defense against the horrible people. So one of my friends works in a store, and these moms come in, and they treat her like s--t. And then she’ll be at a party with me, and they’ll air kiss hello, whatever, and she’ll say, “She treated me like s--t. She treated my staff like s--t.” And I want to know. I want all this information so they can be DTM, dead to me.

Bravo!

My family never understood social climbers. They always said, “Why do people social climb? For what? Like, they’re not cutting you a check.” But I think some people are so insecure that they want to grift off the aura of some billionaire so they can get rides on their jet or something. Which, for me, is like, no thank you. I would so much rather fly on JetBlue with 200 strangers than have to gargle your balls for seven hours. And only to send you a present after that you probably don’t even need. Like, the whole thing is so weird and dumb.

I had never thought about it that way.

But I am the Mr. Rogers sometimes because I feel like I’m friendly to everyone. But then I really also keep my distance if someone proves themself to be just a vapid, materialistic c---. I’ll say hello, but I evaporate. Emotionally, I’m bursting into a thousand ravens and flying away.