Nancy is small film with intricate notions of what it means to connect with others. At its heart, we have protagonist Nancy who feels alienated from the world, but also compelled to connect with people in the shadow of her rejection, and to do so, she creates fake personas. Director Christina Choe dials in on the longing for emotional bonds and writes a narrative that is empathetic while also disturbing. Part drama and part mystery thriller, Nancy depicts the necessity for human connections through the lies that become reality for the titular character.
The film follows the Nancy (Andrea Riseborough), a struggling thirty something living in the cracks of America. She takes care of her demanding mother and works as a temp in a dentist office while she awaits any news on the publication of her writing. To escape her life, she lives online, writing an alternative existence on her blog and creating a faux reality for herself. However, the lies she weaves online transfer into the real world as she often lies to her coworkers and plays people she is not. When she sees a news report about a child who has been missing for 30 years, she reaches out to the parents (played by Ann Dowd and Steve Buscemi) and beings to have a connection with them in spite of the fact she may not even be related to them.
Core to this film is Nancy herself. On the back of Andrea Riseborough’s great performance, Nancy has an enigmatic feel. From her looks to her prior actions, the audience has no reason to believe her, yet the resemblance to Steve Buschemi, her own testimony, and her prior life provide enough credence to believe the case. As Nancy begins to believe the lie she makes for herself, so does the audience. Nancy’s affliction to lie is a byproduct for her circumstances and we feel for her even though she is catfishing people into believing that she is indeed their missing daughter.
The dynamic between the parents and Nancy plays out like a dance. At times, we don’t know if she is or isn’t the daughter, so we swing back and forth on moods and emotions. Different scenes take on different contexts when viewing under a different pretexts; if we believe the lie, then there is sentimentality to the relationship, but if we have a degree of doubt, then we see Nancy for the cruelty of her behavior. Buscemi and Dowd embody the two sides of this mood as the audience takes the role of Nancy. Buscemi expresses doubt and has a reluctance to Nancy as a character while Dowd goes all in and believes Nancy for her long lost daughter. Choe placates the audience so that we are never angry towards Nancy, but rather sympathetic to her situation.
This dance is not perfect though. Occasionally the film gets vague and certain scenes don’t mesh with the idea above. A scene where a hunter is shot in the forest or when Nancy’s cat goes missing stand out as minute moments that are distracting to the overall message of the film, but have a character-driven dimension to them. Then when the film reaches its peak —that being a DNA test to determine blood relation— it never goes towards confrontation. Instead of playing through the fallout, the film reserves itself from something the audience has been hoping for.
The importance of human connections is what drives Nancy. Choe presents an empathetic look at the universal desire to connect with others and the lengths we go to feel wanted. Through Riseborough’s strong performance and Choe’s assured direction, audiences will be treated to a unique dramatic thriller that can sometimes feel opaque, but whose message translates easily enough to have more than an impact.
Score: 3.5/5