SPOILERS INCLUDED
The first of the many unfulfilled set-ups in Chistina Choe’s “Nancy” is the strained relationship between Nancy (Andrea Riseborough) and her mother, Betty (Ann Dowd). Nancy is forced to serve as the caretaker for her sick mother, massaging her arm and cooking her dinner. Meanwhile, Betty repeatedly opens Nancy’s mail and asks her, “Why do you keep trying?” after the latest rejection letter from a publishing company.
This initially plays into Nancy’s personality, always online, always creating fake personas, such as her persona Becca who runs a pregnancy blog. It’s clear Nancy has a habit of lying and getting away with it, convincing a reader (John Leguizamo) in person with a fake pregnancy bump.
Nancy is allowed her first shot at freedom after her mother dies and catches a news segment about a girl who was kidnapped at a mall 30 years ago. The report produces a photo of what analysts believe the girl would look like now. It is a carbon copy of Nancy. She decides to call the girl’s mother, Ellen (J. Smith-Cameron), and tells her she believes her mother kidnapped her when she was younger. Afraid it is a joke, Ellen demands to see a photo, after which she asks Nancy to visit as soon as possible.
Immediately after walking into their house, it’s clear that Nancy grew up in a completely different environment than how Ellen and Leo (Steve Buscemi) lived. She was always the caretaker for Betty, but now she finds herself in a house where she is the one taken care of. Leo hires a private investigator to take DNA samples and find out if she is their long-lost daughter.
Leo is wary of Nancy the second she comes into their life. He explains that there had been false alarms before and he doesn’t want to see his wife hurt again. This prompts an unnecessary scene where he takes Nancy to his photo studio and shows pictures of his lost daughter. He asks if he can take a picture of her, and she says yes. Many scenes later, he’s back in that room comparing the pictures of her now to his daughter. Nothing concrete is revealed.
The audience spends the rest of the film figuring out if Nancy’s supposed kidnapping is yet another lie or the actual truth, and the biggest let-down of the film is that the answer is never truly revealed. The film peppers in hints like the fact that the girl was kidnapped because she let go of Ellen’s hand to look at a cat in a pet store window, while Nancy runs through the snowy woods to look for her cat, Paul, who had escaped from the house.
What this film lacks in clarity, it makes up for in the actors’ performances. The raw emotion Smith-Cameron shows during the private investigator’s phone call about the results almost makes up for the fact that the audience doesn’t hear the other side of the conversation or find out at all if Nancy truly is their daughter. During the last final moments when Nancy is driving away from the house and family forever, Riseborough gives such a compelling performance, it’s as if the audience is riding in the passenger seat.
That’s what makes the film so frustrating. It immerses the audience in a world before abruptly taking them out with no answers and no pay-off for such an intriguing set-ups. The movie comes a couple concrete answers away from brilliant, but sadly, misses the mark with its uncertainty.
Georgia Micheals is the Media Content Producer of District. She is a junior Film and Television major who will graduate in 2020.
