Nanny (2022)

August 29, 2024 5:55 PM

[Trailer] Piecing together a new life in New York City while caring for the child of an Upper East Side family, immigrant nanny Aisha is forced to confront a concealed truth that threatens to shatter her precarious American Dream. -IMDb

91% critic / 68% audience on Rotten Tomatoes.

posted by johnofjack (2 comments total)

I included the trailer because, well, that's the trailer, but I'd say that both it and the Blumhouse Productions credit are probably doing the film a disservice. I think that if I went into this expecting a traditional horror film I'd be both annoyed and disappointed; instead I went in not even remembering having placed a hold on it (or why), and I enjoyed it immensely.

The film is clearly not for everyone, as audience reviews on RT and Trakt and IMDb show, but for me it just absolutely worked. I liked the focus on character study, I liked the bits of psychological horror; I liked the invocation of myth in what felt very much like a fable; I liked the acting and the political points being made about worker exploitation and the American Dream.... I did not love the ending (it felt a bit abrupt to me) but still I thought this was a very promising debut and I'm eager to see what Jusu does next.
posted by johnofjack at 6:00 PM on August 29

I also really enjoyed this movie, especially the scenes of her life back at home. It had a rich mythology that really humanized and centered Aisha's story, which made the worker exploitation issues that much more frustrating and infuriating.

Now I want some jollof rice...
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 7:12 PM on August 30 [1 favorite]