Jawline

About

Jawline is a documentary film staring aspiring influencer Austyn Tester and talent agent Michael Weist directed by Liza Mandelup. The film follows YouNow aspiring star 16-year-old Austyn Tester as he tries to escape his rural Tennessee life and build a large following.

History

In February 2019, the Jawline premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. On February 13th, IONCINEMA uploaded an interview of Austyn Tester (shown below, left) and Liza Mandelup (shown below, right) at the festival to YouTube. The videos gained over 4,200 and 1,100 views respectively in seven months. Hulu then bought the rights to stream the documentary.

On July 9th, Hulu released the official trailer for Jawline (shown below). The trailer received over 68,300 views in 20 days. The film was released on August 23rd to Hulu.

Reception

Following the August 23rd release of Jawline RogerEbert,^[1] The Verge^[5] and The New Yorker^[2] all gave the film positive reviews. The Verge states, "Jawline explores what’s unique about social media stardom without overemphasizing its novelty, so the film works as a dissection of modern digital celebrity, but also a classic story about beautiful young people struggling to get famous." The New Yorker as well as other reviewers noted their frustration with Michael Weist, the talent agent in the film who is best known for his involvement in TanaCon.^[3] Jawline also received a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes.^[4]

Twitter users gave mixed reviews. On August 24th, Twitter user @butwhatamess^[7] stated, "This Hulu documentary JAWLINE is giving me douche chills" (shown below, left) while Twitter user @TrevDon^[6] tweeted, "Saw a documentary on Hulu called Jawline, it's kinda depressing. I'm so glad there was no social media when I was a teen. These kids base their worth on social media attention. Some girls even drove 3 hrs to meet a boy who posted to his followers 'meet me at the mall'" (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References