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Reviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
DOWNLOADING NANCY Johan Renck’s controversial Downloading Nancy, apparently inspired by a true story, centers on Nancy (Maria Bello), a housewife in an unnamed suburban American town. She's married to an insensitive, emotionally and sexually stunted husband, Albert (Rufus Sewell), who all but ignores her. The film begins after Nancy has left a note at home, telling Albert she’s left town for Baltimore to meet some “friends,” i.e. Louis (Jason Patric), a kindred soul she met online. After that, the film alternates between real-time and flashbacks, sometimes relying a bit too heavily on a flashy, jerky, MTV style of editing, which is irritating almost from the first five minutes. Louis has promised to engage her in various pain and sex games, and also to grant the tormented Nancy her ultimate “release,” although how serious he is about following through on this isn’t apparent until the end. Flashbacks depicting Nancy’s increasingly confrontational sessions with her therapist (Amy Brenneman) only serve to illustrate just how bitter, disturbed, and perhaps beyond help she is. It transpires here that Nancy had been sexually abused by her uncle as a child, and is now prone to a self-mutilation or cutting disorder, which is the only way she claims she can feel any true emotions. There is violence and disturbing content here, although most of the truly disturbing elements involve Nancy’s self-mutilation, the rough sado-masochistic games she plays with Louis, and a rather absurd confrontation between Albert and Louis, who shows up inexplicably at Albert’s home. Also quite grating are several sequences filmed almost as if in fantasy or hallucinatory mode, cueing the viewer to think that perhaps they aren’t occurring in reality, when, if one takes the film as a whole, they clearly are intended to be occurring in reality. Many scenes come off so unbelievably that they rob the film of any real credibility (particularly the preposterous scenes of Albert confronting Louis). A sequence in which Nancy and Louis have dinner at a Chinese restaurant and Nancy—enraged at Louis for trying to back out of their agreement—lashes out verbally at a female customer comes off as laughable where it should be chilling. Nancy’s dark fate is anticlimactic, most of the characters are completely miserable, and Sewell’s Albert is so overpoweringly unpleasant that his performance approaches self-parody. The film’s tone is almost unbearably and monotonously grim, although in that sense it exemplifies its subject matter. On the
positive side, the consistently compelling Bello and Patric are at the
top of their game, even sympathetic, in the lead roles. Also of note are
the superlative cinematography of Christopher Doyle, which emphasizes
grittiness and hyper-reality in equal measure, and a haunting score by
Krister Linder. Ultimately, it’s a shame that Renck’s film dares to rise
above the level of trash cinema by taking this controversial material
seriously only to end up subverting itself with annoyingly slick
editing, a muffled dialogue track, and a confusing and unconvincing
narrative. Just as the film leaves no way out for its primary character,
Downloading Nancy does much the same for its audience.
Scott David Briggs
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