Is it possible that all of your likes, your dislikes, the very tastes that you feel define you as a human being, aren’t really choices that you’ve made for yourself at all, but ideas that have been sold to you by slick, suit-wearing predators who pride themselves on being able to tap into your ego and insecurities in order to brainwash you into believing whatever what they want you to believe? Are you such a mindless follower that you’ve bought your entire identity off of a billboard?
These are the heady questions at the center of Max Barry’s debut novel “Syrup,” which is a satirical tale set in the world of product marketing. And they’re the heady questions at the center of director Aram Rappaport’s new film adaptation of the story, which stars names like Shiloh Fernandez, Brittany Snow, and Amber Heard.
Does watching a group of smug, pretty people engaging in tawdry sexcapades, vicious backstabbing, and plans to get rich off of feeding the public a line of bullshit sound like it might be up your alley? Or does painting the public as a mass of mindless consumer zombies sound like the sort of cynical thing that’s not really to your tastes? Why not watch the new trailer for the film and let the advertisers make the decision for you? It beats making the effort of pretending that you’ve got a will of your own.