Nerve’s trailer did a good job getting me and my daughter interested in seeing it. The film does enough to make it fun, but suffers from a few elements and a weak ending. I still enjoyed Nerve enough to give it the Decent Watch rating.
Nerve is a bit less thrilling than I had hoped, but was mainly enjoyable.
Vee (Emma Roberts) is a high school senior that is torn between her own hopes and dreams and her desire to please her mom. She often chooses the path of the sidekick and the quiet kid hiding behind her camera. That is until Vee finds herself immersed in an online game of truth or dare where you can only choose dare, and her every move is dictated by an anonymous community of “watchers.”
Nerve is directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, who both also directed Catfish the documentary and Paranormal Activity 3 and 4. They bring a somewhat new story in Nerve based on a novel written by Jeanne Ryan and adapted into the screenplay by Jessica Sharzer. The film reminds me of The Game modernized for the viral age. Things that irritated me were the technology alterations made for the sake of the film. Her Macbook is touch screen. The screens of smartphones also act as thumbprint readers. You can swipe up on your phone and the screen appears on the TV. Fictional technology works if the items being used are futuristic or completely fake, but not when they are product placements and common items.
The film does have a solid cast
I did really like Dave Franco, Emma Roberts, and Emily Meade. I have said before that I’m not a big James Franco fan, but Dave Franco has won me over time and time again. The chemistry that builds between him and Roberts from their first encounter and as the film moves forward is extremely believable. Emily Meade plays Vee’s best friend Sydney who is also a player in the game Nerve. She seemed to be encouraging Vee to do something to put herself out there, but isn’t happy when Vee starts doing better at the game than she. The conflict between the characters works and makes sense for the most part.
Vee’s mother is Nancy (Juliette Lewis). We learn early that her brother died, but we never learn how. It’s a significant element of the plot as it is the reason Vee feels stuck in New York. It feels like a loose end that could come back in a sequel or was just glossed over that he died and the how isn’t important.
How does Nerve stay secret?
The back story the film gives on the game is brief and simple. Nerve seems to move from city to city. It’s like Fight Club in that people aren’t supposed to talk about it as they thank their users for keeping it a secret. Yet, the game appears to take place in one day and over 4,000 people seem to know about it. The watchers, who are supposedly anyone that watches the game, create the dares that the characters have to perform.
SPOILER WARNING: Next paragraph
My biggest issue with the film is the end sequence. SPOILER WARNING – the game culminates with the top two contestants holding guns at each other and the first one to shoot the other wins. This particular dare doesn’t really make a lot of sense. Even more, the rules of the game seem to imply there isn’t a single person in charge of any of it, yet someone takes players who break the rules and puts them in as a “prisoner.” Controlling their life and stealing their identities as punishment. This doesn’t really jive with the idea that there isn’t someone in charge.
Vee, Sydney, Ty (Machine Gun Kelly), Tommy (Miles Heizer), and Hacker Kween (Samira Wiley) perpetrate a rouse. It plays out okay, but it’s a bunch of techno-babble that may or may not be true for hacker babble, but it’s very deus ex machina and works just in time. Failing to give the game a true face is interesting and yet more confusing. Why do they have to kill each other? Is the message that people given absolute anonymity will revert to animalistic ways? If that’s what the film is going for, it’s shoehorned in at the last sequence.
While Vee is a fairly focused and strong female lead, I was disappointed with Sydney’s character. Sydney is the stereotypical attention and literal whore. They had her braless in tight shirts throughout the film to really hammer home the point. It didn’t add anything significant to the character so it felt a bit exploitative. Vee does eventually call her out on aspects of this personality trait.
Wrapping Up: Nerve
Even with the problems, the film is still entertaining enough. I think the target audience will probably enjoy the film a bit more. It’s one that you can definitely wait to see as a rental though. There were a few solid laughs in the film and I did really enjoy Vee and Ian (Franco).
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