NERVE – Review

NERVE is a paranoid suspenser about an extreme on-line game as well as a look at the ridiculousness of our contemporary fame-obsessed culture. Taking place throughout a single night and crafted with precision by co-directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman,  this timely story is an enjoyable watch which at times strains credibility, but it’s clever and well-paced. While NERVE can’t escape from the limitations of its premise and builds to an unsatisfying conclusion, it’s better than expected.

NERVE tells of 18-year old, risk-averse high school photographer Venus (or ‘Vee’ – played by 25-year old Emma Roberts) who lives with her single nurse mom (Juliette Lewis) and had a brother who died two years earlier. A humiliating encounter with the football stud she has a crush on inspires her to join her more popular best friend Sydney (27-year old Emily Meade) in playing Nerve, a game where she can be well-paid for successfully completing a series of embarrassing, illegal, and/or terrifying dares (“like Truth or Dare without the truth”). These are broadcast live online where viewers, called “Watchers”, pay huge bucks to follow and record them. Vee discovers that the powers behind the game, who operate on the ‘Dark Web’, are intimately familiar with her. She’s tempted with information pulled from her Facebook page and challenged to kiss Ian, a hunky stranger (David Franco) soon revealed to be a fellow player she’s destined to partner with. At first the game is relatively innocuous – sing in public, flash your butt, try on an expensive dress, get a tattoo, steal clothes from the dressing room where another player is trying on that expensive dress. Vee and Ian’s fans cheer them and the other players on to riskier dares with higher stakes – hang from a skyscraper, lie under a train, steal a cop’s gun. But the game takes a twisted turn when it builds to the all-or-nothing Grand Prize round, where players become ‘Prisoners of the Game’ with their lives on the line. Can Vee trust Ian and just how far will she go before losing her Nerve?

NERVE plays like an updated teen version of the classic paranoia thrillers from the 1960s and ’70s, where some mysterious force is pulling the strings from behind a curtain, while at the same time its one-night structure fits it neatly into the genre of film as theme park ride. A scene where Ian must hit 60mph blindfolded on his motorcycle, with Vee as passenger, is a thrill and as the actions shift from adrenaline rushing to dangerous and cruel, the audience is kept on edge. NERVE is very effective in terms of a pace and rhythm that feels natural rather than episodic. Unfortunately, the film does not sustain its tension through a weak climax featuring implausible gunplay and a bloodthirsty mob dressed like refugees from THE PURGE that feels jarringly inconsistent with the rest of the picture. Jessica Sharzer (from a YA novel by Jeanne Ryan) has concocted a script that’s ultimately too clever for its own good. This is one of those movies that’s so tightly written and densely plotted, it leaves no room for error – or viewer questions which will start before the movie’s over — head-scratchers on the order of  “Wouldn’t their plans fall apart if he had reacted to this situation differently?” and that old standby: “Where are the police?”

Emma Roberts and Dave Franco make for likable, if somewhat bland, leads (both are too old to be playing high-schoolers and both have distractingly bushy eyebrows) while Emily Meade (who with one scene stole MONEY MONSTER) is a standout as Vee’s damaged friend (the actress would have made a more intriguing Vee). Juliette Lewis is given little to do except wonder why so much money is suddenly being deposited in her and her daughter’s joint bank account (“white people’s problems” notes her black patient). NERVE isn’t perfect but it will certainly keep you hooked.

3 1/2 of 5 Stars