Connect with us

Film

Final Girls Berlin Film Festival 2019: ‘Nancy’ Can’t Maintain its Unsettling Tone

What does Nancy Freeman want out of life? Subtly played by shapeshifter-turned-actress Andrea Riseborough, she remains a complete enigma right until the final scene of Nancy. Aiming for delicate ambiguity before becoming totally inscrutable, the film can’t maintain its unsettling, sad tone, and despite round-the-board excellent performances to go with a dreamy, lush score by Peter Raeburn, first-time feature director Christina Choe can’t quite find the narrative to match

Nancy is a sad, reclusive woman. She works as a temp at a dentist’s office, but wants to be a writer, frantically checking the post each morning to see if her submissions are successful. They never are. Perhaps this inspires her to weave her own fictions in real life, such as pretending to be pregnant online to win the affection of Jeb (John Leguizamo), who is recently suffering from the still-born death of his own child. Is she trying to manipulate people, or is she just lonely, looking for someone to really care for her?

After her mother (Ann Dowd) dies of Parkinson’s, Nancy sees a story in the news. Leo and Ellen Lynch (Steve Buscemi and J. Smith-Cameron) have set up a scholarship fund in the name of their daughter, Brooke, who has been missing for over thirty years. Scientists provide a projection of what they think their child would have looked like, and noticing the similarity, Nancy calls Ellen up, telling her she might the girl she’s looking for…

We know that Nancy is a liar from how she treated Jeb, but does she genuinely believe herself to be the couple’s daughter, or is she like Frédéric Bourdin, the serial imposter who pretended to be over 500 different people, including missing children? With its bleak and snowy setting, and with genre queen Riseborough in the lead, Nancy courts noir territory, yet never commits to it, opting for subtle family drama instead. This decision is fine — after all, one can’t judge a film for being a different genre than anticipated — yet going down the “subtle family drama” route doesn’t have to mean abandoning conflict altogether.

Like Hirokazu Kore-eda’s movies, such as Shoplifters and Like Father, Like Son, Nancy asks key questions about what it means to be a family. Is it something one is entitled to, or can it be reverse-manufactured? Unlike with Kore-eda’s work, however, these issues in Nancy aren’t particularly heightened by the drama itself; the search for a lost cat and an unrelated hunting misfire are more distracting than affecting. Considering the lived-in sadness of both Steve Buscemi and J.Smith-Cameron’s performances, they deserved a screenplay that treated their desire for family life with compassion and nuance. Instead, the richness of the premise is diluted by a fuzzy and un-incisive plot.

Completely different from her other 2018 appearances in Mandy, Black Mirror‘s“Crocodile,” and The Death of Stalin, Riseborough uses her varied facial expressions as a mask. We can tell when she is lost deep in thought, but what exactly those thoughts are is anyone’s guess. Early on, she reveals to her colleagues that she went to North Korea alone, but strangely withholds the reason for her trip. An interesting trait (especially as Christina Choe visited the country herself for a TV series), but its never picked up on again — a classic example of Nancy‘s inadequacy when it comes to developing character. Why mention something like that if it doesn’t pay off later?

By the end, one could have several different interpretations of what this woman is really thinking. She could be mentally unstable, damaged, or deeply in need of love. Who knows? It’s like an emotional choose-your-own-adventure story. The problem is that when every opinion is valid, then no opinions are valid. The audience shouldn’t be told how to feel, but sometimes it helps if you push them in the right direction.

Written By

As far back as he can remember, Redmond Bacon always wanted to be a film critic. To him, being a film critic was better than being President of the United States

Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Facebook

Trending

Funk Flex Proclaims Support For Tory Lanez And Says He’s Innocent In Megan Thee Stallion Case

Celebrity

Suspected CEO Killer Luigi Mangione Moved To Same Prison As Diddy

News

New York City’s Mayor Grants Joey Bada$$ His Own Day

Celebrity

Squid Game season 2 review: Brutal thrills — and lots of buildup

Film

The Most Anticipated Albums of 2025: Lana Del Rey, the Weeknd, Chappell Roan, Lady Gaga and More

Celebrity

The Worst Movies of 2024

Film

Sebastian Stan Wins Golden Globe for ‘A Different Man’: ‘Our Ignorance and Discomfort Around Disability and Disfigurement Has to End Now’

Celebrity

‘The Batman 2’ Delayed to 2027, Alejandro G. Iñarritu’s Tom Cruise Movie Gets 2026 Date

Film

Why Disney Channel Star Kay Panabaker Disappeared From Hollywood

Celebrity

Jason Momoa will officially return to DC as Lobo after saying 'he always was my favorite' Jason Momoa will officially return to DC as Lobo after saying 'he always was my favorite'

Jason Momoa will officially return to DC as Lobo after saying ‘he always was my favorite’

Celebrity

Cobra Kai series finale gets premiere date and first-look photos

Film

Skilla Baby Offers To Cover Costs Of Celebration Of Life For Missing Teen, Na’Ziyah Harris

Celebrity

Draya Michele’s Double Standard Take On Mariah Carey & Anderson .Paak’s Potential Romance Blows Up In Her Face

Celebrity

DJ Akademiks Insists That Playboi Carti Will Drop Before 2024 Ends Despite Fans’ Skepticism

Celebrity

The Best Concerts of 2024

Celebrity

Claressa Shields Moves Past All Her Beef In 2025 By Entering Her Beyoncé Era

Celebrity

Connect