It’s a natural reaction to wonder how anyone could possibly be so stupid whenever you read a headline about young Western women seduced by ISIS recruiters. To throw everything away to, quite literally, get in bed with known terrorists is a path so head-scratching – an idea so objectively poor – that it literally escapes the realm of comprehension. And yet, countless such stories exist. Women who knowingly smuggled themselves into Syria and the not-so-warm embrace of the Islamic State, where a murderous patriarchal theocracy awaits their sacrifice, exist in the thousands. Their stories, sadly, usually end the same: attempts to escape, sexual enslavement, or being stoned to death. And though journalistic queries about the 5 W’s loom large, the who, where, what, and how of their recruitment fade beneath the pressing issue of why. Why would any woman choose this? Why would any woman subject themselves to the will of patriarchal terrorists?

Attempting to answer these questions is Amy Whitaker (Valene Kane), a freelance writer chasing the scoop of her career in Profile, the “screenlife” thriller from Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted, Ben-Hur) that’s been completed and awaiting release since 2018. Borrowing the true story of a British journalist who attempted to infiltrate ISIS recruitment before falling prey to their tactics, Profile tells a cautionary tale about the inscrutable nature of seduction. When Amy catfishes ISIS recruiter Bilel (Shazad Latif) with a fake Facebook profile alleging her recent conversion to Islam by sharing his extremist, pro-Islamic State videos, she launches headfirst down the terrorist rabbit hole, experiencing firsthand the techniques used to recruit would-be female ISIS sympathizers and future wives/slaves.

Bekmambetov has been experimenting with the screenlife framework (the growing subgenre of movies that take place entirely within a computer screen) for a while now, serving as a producer on the breakout thriller Searching as well as the two Unfriended films and this year’s Romeo and Juliet adaptation R#J. With Profile, Bekmambetov capitalizes on the way the gimmick allows audience members to enter the inner thoughts of a character with Amy being ground-zero for a hostile takeover of the mind and heart. As more and more of us experience life through technology, screenlife becomes an increasingly evocative format and framing device and it’s used as expertly here, ratcheting up the tension to extremes that likely would not exist within a traditional narrative model.

There’s an intimacy that screenlife creates between the audience and the protagonist where we’re privy not only to Amy’s deepest secrets but also her thought processes: the things one thinks but go unsaid become textual. We enter her inner monologue and ride the swell of bad ideas and impulses, little errors in judgement and flirtations with ethical dilemmas, that begin to guide then dominate her approach to getting to the heart of the story. As the would-be recruitment plays out, she goes from catfisher to catfished, falling under the spell of Bilel’s faux-affection.

Though Amy’s transition from impartial infiltrator to real-life romantic counterpart feels a bit hazy and characterized by almost intangible gullibility as things unfold, the audience is provided at least a cursory understanding of her seduction. For Amy, it’s not about the religious angle so much as it is about being seen, being worshipped, being loved. Bilel’s charm is undeniable (the British Latif offers a convincing and commanding turn) though easy smiles and effusive doting fail to overshadow his extremist ideology and the videos he’s shared of beheadings for this viewer. How Amy (under the pseudonym Melody) fails to recognize the very schemes she’s there to investigate at times speaks more to her susceptibility than the sophistication of ISIS recruitment approach.

From her perspective, it’s all probably fake, but what if it’s not? What if this connection is real and she could live a fairytale life…in Syria? Seduction is a powerful weapon and the charismatic Bilel wields it like a scalpel – when he’s not bringing the occasional trigger-happy hammer down. As Amy grows closer to Bilel, distancing herself from her real-life relationships with boyfriend Matt (Morgan Watkins), best friend Kathy (Emma Cater) and boss Vick (Christine Adams), the line between undercover journalist and victim blur before disappearing entirely. Amy fades into Melody. The exercise in investigation becomes a real-life example of ISIS recruitment hard at work.

Earlier this year, Alba Sotorra’s powerfully provocative documentary The Return: Life After ISIS expertly tracked this same phenomenon, following an encampment of young women who fell prey to ISIS’ slick propaganda and religious zealotry, before – almost always – finding themselves sold into sex slavery. It’s a challenging watch and one that makes a sobering counterpart to Bekmambetov’s narrative work, offering another piece to that still-elusive question of why. Entertaining, suspenseful, and at times throw-your-hands-up frustrating, Profile can’t answer the question -nor is that really it’s intent – but it does provide a crystal clear example of how not to be a journalist.

CONCLUSION: An undercover journalist attempts to infiltrate the ISIS recruitment schematic before a charming recruiter infiltrates her heart in this unnerving screenlife thriller from Timur Bekmambetov. More beguiling than illuminating, ‘Profile’ leaves audiences wondering how anyone in their right mind could fall for these tactics while effectively keeping us on the edge of our seats and shouting at our screens.