'Night Nurse' Needs to Go Back to Bed
What starts as an interesting concept plummets into foolishness. Georgia Bernstein’s Night Nurse makes you think the movie is going in one direction, then thinks it’s subverting your expectations when, really, it’s just tripping over itself. The most unfortunate thing is that this picture could really be something unique. Ms Bernstein is going for a theme of how anyone can be a monster. Even those who seem the most helpless could fool you. That’s a very unique angle. The story about a nurse who scams people and a patient who uses his state of mind to get out of doing whatever he wants is eyebrow-raising. Once you see how the tables are turned, however, you realize there wasn’t much food there to begin with.
The opening credits to the movie are great. The camera loops around the phone cord of a landline as we follow the frame, revealing the body of a young, attractive woman speaking into it. With a seductive voice, the woman begs for help. She says she’s been in an accident; someone might have been hurt and needs a large sum of money to manage her bail. It’s all a sham to get a gullible, mentally fading senior citizen to fork out as much dough as the scammer can get. It’s an awful thing that people do, yet when someone is desperate enough to make money, they’ll do the things we tell ourselves we’d never do, all while never really being in that person’s situation.
What makes a good movie work is when we can understand someone’s point of view. Even if it were the Joker, we would understand his nihilistic take on society under the penmanship of a good writer and through the lens of a solid director. Night Nurse has potential that’s held back by an artist who fails to flesh out her characters. After the opening credits, we’re introduced to our protagonist, Eleni Sadik (Cemre Paksoy), who starts her job at a nursing home. We find out that she’s at a dead end in life. Nursing is her only means of staying off the streets. But then the movie abandons any backstory, so it could end up with a plot that goes almost nowhere. Except for its final few minutes, the picture is aimlessly horny.
When we meet Douglas (Bruce McKenzie), we assume he’s just another senile old man. It turns out that Douglas is either fully conscious or half-sure about everything. Soon, Douglas violently takes Eleni hostage, forcing her to pretend to be somebody’s grandchild to snatch their money away from them. Now that we know where the spiel from the opening credits came from, the picture doesn’t know where to take that context further.
Rather than being sickened by Douglas’ actions, Eleni is utterly turned on by them. Eleni goes from an innocent nurse to an obedient puppy by the drop of a hat. It’s almost like she has Stockholm syndrome. She never reports Douglas’ actions to the board (probably because she wants some of his cut). But why does she romanticize him? If she thinks he’s “old and disgusting,” then why does she keep reaching for his knob? If sex is part of the financial exchange in the scam, it needs to be emphasized. There’s an alarming amount of subservience in this film, with a car falling straight into its potholes. Not only is Eleni falling head over heels for Douglas, but so is the entire nursing staff. Even at one point in the movie, Douglas has everyone medicated so he can perform some sort of orgy with them. Most of the nurses pass out, leaving Douglas with nobody to play with. He’s a sick man, but not so sick as to Bill Cosby a passed-out girl.
Why are all these nurses bending to Douglas’ will? How’s the money transferring to his account when he’s not giving them the financial details over the phone? How does the assisted living facility he resides in fail to notice unusual cash flow coming into its residence? Is the whole place in on it? Are even the supervisors collecting the scammed money? None of this plot works because none of it makes any logical sense. No matter how absurd your movie’s concept is, it has to be rooted within some realm of believability. We don’t know why Eleni is such an irresponsible wreck, or what attracts her to Douglas other than the thrill of danger. How did Douglas wind up where he is? What kind of monstrous things did he do before checking into an assisted living facility? Also, what’s with the random lesbian kissing in the picture? Is the director just horny and wanted to see other girls make out?
Your picture doesn’t work when the viewer is wondering about the plot holes rather than being engaged in the actual plot. Thank goodness the movie is short. A few more minutes of young twenty-year-old girls vying over a dying old man were enough for me to call the nurse so she could turn the program off the TV.
Night Nurse is now playing in theaters
