Review from RCR Entertainment Reporter, Fiona Zaring, Follow her on IG at @FionaZaring
Christina Choe makes her feature debut with Nancy, introducing audiences to a pathological liar quietly wreaking havoc on the world around her. The Sundance-winning film has received two 2019 Independent Spirit Award nominations and continues to fascinate critics. Andrea Riseborough excels as the title character, artfully delivering a troubled loner looking to feel special in the midst of her dull surroundings.
Nancy is a 30-year-old with a temp job looking after her ill mother in small-town New Jersey. Her only real source of honest companionship is her relationship with her beloved cat Paul. She invents alternate realities for herself — a vacation to North Korea, a failed pregnancy — in order to make connections with people. She is quietly determined to fulfill her dream to be recognized as a writer, but the piles of rejection letters tell us that she hasn’t caught a break.
One of her invented realities has given her writing an audience online. Nancy created the persona of Becca, a grieving woman dealing with the loss of a baby. Families dealing with similar loss turn to Becca for companionship and Nancy has a chance to feel special, even going so far as to meet a man wearing a fake pregnancy stomach.
Nancy craves attention and compassion, but her relationship with her mother (Ann Dowd) is clearly strained. As the sole source of assistance for her mother’s Parkinson’s disease, resentment runs both ways in their home. When her mother unexpectedly dies of a stroke, Nancy is left all alone, having lost her only connection to her actual reality. The death causes that connection to quickly slip away, and Nancy makes some impulsive choices that blur the lines of fact and fiction to herself and the audience.
After watching a news report about parents who lost their daughter to kidnapping thirty years ago, Nancy honestly seems to question her relationship with her own mother. She comes to believe that she could be the couples lost child, and egged on by a police sketch that does look shockingly similar to her, Nancy decides to reach out and share her theory with the grieving parents. J. Smith-Cameron and Steve Buscemi deliver heart-wrenching performances as they balance reasonable doubt with the overwhelming and emotional possibility that their daughter could be returning home after so long.
However, the audience’s sympathy for Nancy is pushed to the limit as she enters their lives and provides solid reasoning that toys with the couple. We know she’s untrustworthy, but we no longer have a grasp on what is fact or fiction. The last thing we know to be true is that when she looks for her birth certificate, it is missing.
She claims her mother admitted after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s that she was not her biological mom. She also claims that her mother said an aunt she never met has her birth certificate and she was adopted from a distant cousin she can provide no information on. The director does a phenomenal job of showing but not telling the audience what to think, a Google search conducted by Leo (Steve Buscemi) reveals that there are many deceased Nancy Freemans, which could mean that Nancy’s mother stole a new identity for their child thirty years ago.
The couple hires a private investigator and Nancy submits DNA for a test. If this is all an elaborate ruse for attention Nancy will only be able to keep it up for a few days. A true bond begins to form between the three strangers, it really seems as though Nancy firmly believes everything she tells them. The movie is quickly building towards the climax of whether or not she is biologically their daughter.
Buscemi’s performance, as a character that is unusually normal for him, keeps the story grounded. Leo remains skeptical and focused even as he warms up to Nancy. Ellen (J. Smith-Cameron) is heartbreakingly eager to accept Nancy as her child, and Leo worries for his wife’s stability as she crosses the line referring to their daughter Brooke around Nancy no longer as “her” but as “you.”
Nancy makes its audience intentionally uncomfortable; you find yourself rooting for this lost soul to actually be the victim of kidnapping. The family she’s walked into is everything she wished her life could be, with warm and rich parents who encourage her dreams. All of the emptiness in Nancy’s life seems like it could finally be filled with love if she is indeed their daughter Brooke.
This unpredictable, quietly thrilling movie is a must watch for fans of mystery. A darkly successful first feature for Christina Choe, her Independent Spirit nomination for “Best First Screenplay” is overwhelmingly deserved.
About Nancy
A serial imposter, Nancy becomes increasingly convinced she was kidnapped as a child, and when she meets a couple whose daughter went missing thirty years ago, the power of emotion threatens to overcome all rationality.
Actors: Andrea Riseborough J. Smith-Cameron Ann Dowd John Leguizamo Steve Buscemi
Director: Christina Choe
Producers: Michelle Cameron Amy Lo Andrea Riseborough
Writer: Christina Choe
Drama Mystery & Suspense Independent
Connect on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/nancythemovie/
Find out more here www.nancy.movie
