Franklinmovie

We dare you.

Nerve, USA/Hong Kong, 2016. Directed by H. Joost and A. Shulman, written by J. Sharzer (from the novel by J. Ryan). With Emma Roberts, Dave Franco. Original music by R. Simonsen. Length: 96′. Rated: PG-13.

Vee has recently lost her brother and her quiet Staten Island is beginning to look too constrictive for her college ambitions. Anyway she’s not the most resourceful girl in her company, so when Sydney, her best friend, brings her face to face with this attitude, she tries to turn her life around, engaging herself in a daring online game, called Nerve; the game, though, gets tougher and scarier and there is no losing or bailing without going bankrupt…

 

In the era of “Black Mirror”, this movie had maybe one of the lowest expectations I’d ever had and maybe this is the reason why, in the end, I liked the whole this much. I mean, not that this is a great movie, but I never thought I’d say it would be a good one. The concept reminds one of the Netflix TV show that hypothesises on the technological implementations of the near future, but this movie relies on a much higher audience involvement, where the thrilling scenes are the most breathtaking I’ve seen in quite a while and the photography has great internal coherence, which gives a sensation of completeness to the movie.

The director duo is at their first experience with a full-length movie, but their previous collaboration in almost all their works has surely developed a great knowledge of each other and collaboration skills, so that credit must be given for a movie which would be much less enjoyable, and even more so because of the unoriginal idea which it relies on. Along with it goes a modest screenplay in its totality, which, however, has just the right twists and the already cited awesome engaging scenes that confine the dialogues to the background, which is a note of merit in itself.

Not much can be said about the main characters and the actors behind them: the personalities are quite standardised and the lines don’t help in building anything that might go beyond the minimum credibility level, so that both Emma Roberts and Dave Franco, for whom it is difficult to quote any incredible performance, just have to do an average job, which in the end pays the lot.

For this movie it was also very important to have some good music to support the seesawing screenplay, and Rob Simonsen helps in doing exactly that: again, not that anything in the composing is over the edge or innovative, but it does the work it was required and it’s even really enjoyable at times.

The movie has an incredibly standard level throughout, but the overall effect is extremely beyond any expectations. Why that is I can’t say, but the truth is that sometimes a well-done job can really be just one without any spectacular visual effect or any incredible trick, only one where everyone gives their best to reach the right coherence for the visual narration that cinema is, or should be. And this is the (one) perk this movie has.

DOWNLOAD REVIEW IN PDF: Nerve, 2016

LEGGI LA RECENSIONE IN ITALIANO: Nerve – Recensione