Debut feature director Sebastien Guy offers up a relentlessly miserable psycho-drama with Nerve. Wallowing all too literally in the grief and guilt of its lead character, this sordid tale of a widower’s desire to make his late wife’s former lover pay for his loss is heavy on ambient mood and tough talk but otherwise meagre, dramatically.
Heavy on ambient mood and tough talk but otherwise meagre, dramatically .
Guy and co-writer Sarah Smith take far too long to set up the premise and offer little with which to bide our time while we wait. For most of the film’s first act, our protagonist Jakob (Guy-lookalike Christian Clarke, serviceable but unremarkable) meanders about the seedier suburbs of the inner-city, occasionally revisiting the site of the car crash that claimed his wife, Gwen (Shadae Magson), between visits to his therapist (Andrea Demetriades).
In a development that is never clearly defined, Jakob leaves behind his well-to-do suburban life and takes a grimy room in the share-house of tough-girl prostitute Grace (Georgina Haig, lumbered with some of the script’s worst lines). The relationship is testy at first, but when Jakob chases away her abusive boyfriend (Nathan Waring), Grace promises to save him right back and help identify the man his wife was with the night she died.
Nerve is marred by long pauses broken up by stilted dialogue and filmed with a bizarre, floating camera/close-up framing device that captures chins and collars while keeping the actors mostly out of shot. Ella Carey’s production design and Bethany Ryan’s art direction give the film a rich look, but out of focus tail lights and blurry cityscapes indicate rather too bluntly the director’s intent: Jakob’s world has no focus and makes little sense. Guy’s tendency to skim over critical plot turns (how Jakob learns of the lover’s identity; how he and Grace confront him) undermines the real-world psychology that the narrative relies upon, ultimately unravelling the entire structure of the film.
Quality local actors Gary Sweet, Denise Roberts and Cameron Daddo add some weight in support roles, but their characters are undefined and ultimately undervalued. Wordy interludes with Gwen’s BFF Jennifer (Sara Wiseman) and nice immigrant neighbour Elena (Silvia Colloca) could be excised to speed up the plodding pace.
Guy spent a good part of the last decade as an on-screen bit-player in Hollywood’s softcore direct-to-video scene, appearing in such titles as Beautiful Bounty, Sexual Intentions, Burning Desires, Castle Eros and Girl for Girl. His directorial debut is certainly a step above his acting oeuvre, but a generally seedy take on sex and some clichéd staging of seen-it-all-before violence suggests Nerve is very much mired amongst the genre’s most shallow thematic explorations. Those who miss its Sydney Film Festival screenings will have to be content with seeing it as a rental/download item; it’s best suited to the small screen.
