Thrilling ‘Nerve’ never takes its foot off the pedal
Nerve” is the story of the hot new online craze that all the young
ones are into: “This game is sick,” complains a teen — but the adjective
is not meant as praise.
The sharpest, wildest and most unpredictable thriller I’ve seen this
year, “Nerve,” begins at the desk of a shy Staten Island high schooler,
Vee (Emma Roberts), who, feeling caged by her own personality, joins an
online game in which young players accept increasingly outrageous dares
in exchange for money from thousands of watchers. Her saucy friend
Sydney (Emily Meade) is getting rich accepting dares like flashing a
crowd at a football game.
Dared to kiss a stranger, Vee selects another youth, Ian (Dave Franco), who turns out to be a fellow player in the game. So off they bolt together into the night, into Manhattan, into . . . what? “Nerve” conceals its cards beautifully, leaving us to guess whether things will take a turn toward the horrible or whether this is all just the world’s nuttiest first date.
Directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman wring Jessica Sharzer’s
cunning script for everything it’s worth. There are two diabolically
suspenseful scenes as the youths accept life-threatening dares,
feverishly recording themselves on their phones the whole time. At every
stop legions of pervy watchers gather, silent and hungry, a movable
constellation of glowing phones filming everything from the shadows in
hopes of humiliation and mayhem.
In the early going, the film seems shallow and calculated, a ploy to sell wish fulfillment to a narcissistic young audience: What would it be like if you could have tons of fun while racking up thousands of online fans and making money?
Stealthily, though, “Nerve” reveals much more on its mind. Without sermonizing or stopping to take a breath, it explores the moral rot of craving fame and the complicity of an audience baying for ever-more extreme entertainment. As the logic of the game makes it almost impossible to drop out, the players are driven to a frenetic climax that suggests “Barry Lyndon” meets “The Purge” somewhere beyond the Thunderdome. It’s a scene about inescapable pressure, confusing social codes, the ruthlessness of peers: Not a bad metaphor for youth itself.
Dared to kiss a stranger, Vee selects another youth, Ian (Dave Franco), who turns out to be a fellow player in the game. So off they bolt together into the night, into Manhattan, into . . . what? “Nerve” conceals its cards beautifully, leaving us to guess whether things will take a turn toward the horrible or whether this is all just the world’s nuttiest first date.
Directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman wring Jessica Sharzer’s
cunning script for everything it’s worth. There are two diabolically
suspenseful scenes as the youths accept life-threatening dares,
feverishly recording themselves on their phones the whole time. At every
stop legions of pervy watchers gather, silent and hungry, a movable
constellation of glowing phones filming everything from the shadows in
hopes of humiliation and mayhem. In the early going, the film seems shallow and calculated, a ploy to sell wish fulfillment to a narcissistic young audience: What would it be like if you could have tons of fun while racking up thousands of online fans and making money?
Stealthily, though, “Nerve” reveals much more on its mind. Without sermonizing or stopping to take a breath, it explores the moral rot of craving fame and the complicity of an audience baying for ever-more extreme entertainment. As the logic of the game makes it almost impossible to drop out, the players are driven to a frenetic climax that suggests “Barry Lyndon” meets “The Purge” somewhere beyond the Thunderdome. It’s a scene about inescapable pressure, confusing social codes, the ruthlessness of peers: Not a bad metaphor for youth itself.
Comments