"Popular imagination now perceives our corner of the Pacific Northwest as overrun with tech lords, antifa, and expensive-ass housing."

Not sure why you're phrasing it like you're dismissing it as wrong, when your review also spends so many words on these topics.

Sounds like an out-of-touch director and star in a film about a topic neither really understands. Pretty standard for Hollywood lately.

I’m fairly certain the apartment is a set—and a really great one if so! The lighting designers perfectly recreated the blue-gray qualities that we see in Seattle’s light v. LA’s golden glow. That seemed exceptionally real.

The views of Eliott Bay and West Seattle would appear to place it on 1st Ave S in Pioneer Square. Though the building’s exterior looks more like something we’d see in LA’s Arts District, like the Biscuit Company Lofts.

Re apartment rent - it can be so distracting when a character in a show is living well above what her job would be paying her. Even Frasier seemed to be living better than most; how much does a 3 hour radio talk show host get if they are just on one station?

Obligatory XKCD twofer: expensive ass-housing and sick ass-loft.

$6K/month? Um, I think that’s a little high. A 2-bd penthouse in SLU on the top floor might run you that much, but ID/SODO? No way. Here’s a listing for a pretty sweet place in Pioneer Square for $2675. Maybe not as nice as the one from the movie, but I don’t think a rental unit even exists for $6K/mo in that part of town.

Calm down.

https://seattle.craigslist.org/see/apa/d/seattle-awesome-bed-bath-loft-style/7435074872.html

Quit worrying so much about other people’s salaries.

@ 5,

That’s a cool place! The apartment in the movie looks like it’s at least twice as large, perhaps 2,000 square feet (for a 1 bedroom!) so it would cost twice as much one would think.

Maybe if there’s enough interest in the movie, one of the house porn sites like Dirt will provide all the details/interview the set designer or location scout.

https://www.dirt.com/

It's a movie, not a documentary. Jeez, the Stranger staff spend the winter moaning about how few movies are shot in Seattle, and then when one finally is, they moan about how it doesn't really depict life here. I don't remember anyone whining about how John Wayne's character in McQ (a cop) could afford to live on a yacht in a Northlake marina.

Welp, that wuz EZ. Google street view confirms that the exteriors for the apartment were filmed at 1855 Industrial St, Los Angeles, CA in the Arts District across the street from the Biscuit Company Lofts. Ta-daaahhhh!

She's not a "content moderator," that was her previous job at Facebook. As we see, she performs a more difficult and delicate task in updating the KIMI database; in the opening sequence, such work is described as the secret to KIMI's tremendous, market-topping success.

Furthermore, in the dialog where she mentions her father helped to build her loft, she's also casually bossing the building's construction manager. These two points suggest she's not just another renter, but may have a preferential deal. (And even if she does not, @5 noted her rent might not be excessive.)

Please give me what I don't work hard enough to achieve. Not everyone can afford to live on Lake Washington or a penthouse in downtown Seattle..... or a penthouse in Manhattan. You're competing worldwide with 6 billion people for those apartments. Better bring your A game to afford it. There are apartments in the midwest that charge $600 a month. How has the Stranger gone from must read fun to I'm entitled and don't want to work for it? You used to be cool alt think a different way. Criminals should go to jail.

Also, having seen the movie last night, I don't recall anything about the protagonist having agoraphobia. She lives in a great space, works there, and is clearly terrified of contracting COVID. (Her first attempt to leave home falters after she takes copious medications and dons her mask.) When she has a compelling reason to leave home, she promptly masks up and departs, moving rapidly through Seattle's now-normal downtown dystopia: homeless encampments block her path into the International District Station, most of the other persons downtown are loud protesters, and very few passers-by wear masks. We also learn that she was recently assaulted, and then victim-blamed for it. In short, she has good, sane reasons to avoid going out there.

@13,

What the hell are you even talking about!?! This is a fun tangential aside in a movie review. Save one external link to a Seattle Times piece, there's literally no mention of the actual affordability issue, other than the discussion around whether or not the lead character's living situation is realistically depicted or not. You freaking people are so desperate to be angry you don't even bother reading the shit that you mistakenly think is fueling your anger in the first place.

@3,

Agreed! I've noticed it in the other direction as well. Like, a character will have a decent or even high paying job, but the character is "gritty" (or maybe needs to be struggling financially as a plot device) and so lives in a seedy, little, windowless studio apartment.

Jas, Zoe and the rest of the world sincerely hope you get feeling better soon.

@15: "This is a fun tangential aside in a movie review."

No, it is not a "tangential aside," it literally occupies the entire headline and sub-head of the review. The reviewer also spends the longest paragraph obsessing over the protagonist's living space. All of this appears despite such details having absolutely no relevance to the movie's story.

"You freaking people are so desperate to be angry you don't even bother reading the shit that you mistakenly think is fueling your anger in the first place."

(That's rich, coming from someone who apparently did not even bother reading the headline!) No, we've long since tired of the same complaints constantly dominating everything in the Stranger. Yes, rents are higher than they used to be. Yes, tech money is part of the reason for that. All of this was well-established many years ago, yet writers at the Stranger keep inserting these points into pretty much everything published, with absolutely no relevance to the nominal subject matter. Unsurprisingly, readers sometimes express exasperation at this constant repetition of irrelevant, dated points.

@7: Oversized sets are pretty typical for movie production. It makes shooting various scenes and angles easier. Even when actual movie sets have movable walls.

I've seen SRO hotel rooms in movies that would have made luxury hotel suites look small by comparison. But the real thing just doesn't photograph well. Unless the director is going for the claustrophobic look.