Valley Verified

Zhao (The Fraud Squad) returns with a mediocre story of an emerging fashion writer who faces sexism after pivoting to the tech industry. Zoe Zeng toils at a second-tier New York City fashion magazine for low pay. At a clothing launch, she meets Bill, the CEO of a startup called Fit-Pick, and he offers her a marketing job. The app allows users to post two choices for an outfit and have others vote to see which they prefer. Zoe appreciates the democratic and empowering ethos behind Fit-Pick—users are meant to develop confidence in their fashion choices based on encouragement from others, rather than blindly follow queues from influencers—and she decides to leave New York for the higher paying role in Silicon Valley. There, under pressure to create a marketing plan that will impress the company’s top investor, Zoe unwisely recruits a group of influencers to promote the app. The strategy backfires after one of the influencers and Fit-Pick are called out for posts with doctored images, and the blame falls on Zoe. The character work is paint-by-numbers—Bill is a stereotypical sexist bro who cuts corners to wow investors, and the firm’s nerdy male coders bully Zoe—and the happy ending feels implausible. There’s not much here to recommend. Agent: Alex Rice, CAA. (Jan.)