Like or Die 2023

Fátima Ferreira, Mónica Huarte, is a 40-year-old woman with an intellectual disability who lives in Mexico City with her wealthy but emotionally distant father, the film director Joaquín Ferreira Leonardo Daniel. After being banned from the orphanage where she volunteered for allegedly striking another girl, she steals money from her father to buy a smartphone. Sheltered all her life, she quickly becomes fascinated with social media and stumbles upon Argentine lifestyle influencer Jackie Lombardo Bárbara Lombardo and the shallow Sofi Fojo Macarena García. Using money she took, she attends one of Jackie’s seminars. During a session, she breaks down and confesses that her mother Mamá Fatima killed herself when she was a child—something she partly blames herself for—and that her father gives her pills for an unnamed disorder. Through Jackie’s toxic positivity and encouragement, Fátima decides she too wants to be an influencer. She creates social media accounts where she repeats Jackie’s messages of positivity and empowerment. Her childlike demeanor and awkward responses during a livestream quickly go viral, drawing both support and hostility; a user named FelixPerro Memo Dorantes constantly leaves offensive messages on all of Fátima’s posts.

As her following grows, Fátima’s presence catches the attention of the opportunistic Sofi and her best friend Camila Diana Carreiro. They decide to weaponize Fátima’s newfound fame to boost their own careers and take her to a nightclub where she gets drunk and experiences a hallucinatory encounter with her imagined father, followed by Sofi publicly berating her. The next day Sofi and Camila teach Fátima about fandoms and “haters,” and take her to a photoshoot where she earns the nickname “señora influencer” (“Mrs. Influencer”). Sofi and Camila begin to genuinely bond with Fátima, going on trips and attending events together.

One night, Fátima visits Sofi, who is recovering from a violent argument with her boyfriend, Juan Christian Uribe. Fátima livestreams from Sofi’s kitchen, inadvertently revealing Sofi’s tumultuous situation. Sofi becomes upset, uses a slur, and admits that they were only using Fátima. In a psychotic breakdown, Fátima stabs and kills Sofi. When Juan returns and finds her, Fátima kills him as well. Because of Juan’s history of violent behavior, he is initially thought to be Sofi’s killer; the media, however, is quick to credit Fátima’s self-defense, painting her as a heroic figure.

Her rising fame carries her onto a late-night talk show, where she awkwardly performs a self-penned love song to roaring applause. As her popularity expands, so does the strain on her mental health. After she suffers a stroke, Joaquín reveals to Fátima that she is, in fact, responsible for her mother’s death, recounting the car crash that occurred when her mother tried to intervene during a heated argument. Feeling trapped, Fátima confronts Jackie, who threatens to sue over stolen content. In the heat of the moment, Jackie calls her a “crazy bitch.” That night, Fátima attacks Jackie at her hotel and later buys a taser to stalk her “haters”—including FelixPerro and another young woman named Diana. She kidnaps them and forces them to sing along to her songs, keeping them captive in her father’s basement. One of the two captives is killed by Fátima for mispronouncing a lyric, and Camila grows suspicious and eventually discovers the abduction. Fátima knocks Camila out and forces her to watch the livestreamed singing, which is watched by millions. She sets the house on fire with the aim of killing Camila and the others, but a moment of lucidity leads her to untie them and set them free. FélixPerro arrives and knocks Fátima unconscious, leaving her to die in the blaze.

In the end, the others walk away with their new fame and notoriety. Fátima becomes a controversial online figure: some hail her as a martyr for cyberbullying, while others condemn her as a monster. Joaquín reveals plans to make a movie based on his daughter, turning her life into another sensational narrative. Sometime later, a woman in Buenos Aires drops her son off at a daycare and is greeted by Fátima, who has escaped her past and left Jackie to die in the fire. Having stolen her passport and documents, Fátima—now living as Jackie—sings along with the other children.