DieRy

Keeping a diary can be a wonderfully cathartic and meditative avenue with which to chronicle one’s journey through life. However, a diary can also be used as a weapon if it somehow falls into the wrong hands. Unfortunately, Marie discovers just how dangerous a stolen diary can be in the silly but entertaining thriller, DieRy.

After a shocking prologue set in a psycho ward (I’m on board!), director Jennifer Gelfer’s movie slows down for the better half of the film’s roughly 100-minute running time. But once Ciaran Byrne shows up as Angus, a wonderfully besotted yet wise private investigator, DieRy springs to life and sustains its momentum until the end.

I remember a time in the not-so-distant past when protagonists in movies like DieRy were magazine editors, sports columnists, or some other such sexy vocation. Nowadays, they are more likely to be “influencers,” whatever that means. I guess it just goes to show that the times are a-changin,’ I’m getting older, blah blah.

“…Marie is even more horrified when some of her friends and acquaintances get murdered…”

Marie (Claudia Maree Mailer) is one such Instagram influencer. Thankfully, the script by John Buffalo Mailer doesn’t paint Marie as some vapid, pretty person, but rather as a levelheaded and bright young woman. Marie earns money from her clout as an influencer, but she is also working towards a master’s degree in comparative religion and appears to have a firm handle on her life’s direction, despite a murky and undoubtedly sordid past.

Although Marie works with a therapist, Dr. Brighton (James Sutorius), her mental health is truly regulated via airing her innermost thoughts and observations in her diary. In the privacy of these pages, Marie can talk smack about her “friends” and explore her deepest contemplations, thoughts that she may keep even from her therapist.

So you can imagine Marie’s horror when she receives a mysterious red envelope communiqué one evening and learns that her diary has been stolen. To make matters worse, the unnamed individual who took the diary intends to use Marie’s own words to their advantage to get closer to her.