NIGHT NURSE – Review by Marina Antunes
A young, dough-eyed nurse arrives at a well appointed retirement village, the latest nurse to care for Douglas, a charismatic resident whose big personality has scared off the help. Except that in Eleni, Douglas appears to have met his match.
In her feature film debut Night Nurse, writer/director Georgia Bernstein sets off to explore themes of power dynamics and sexuality but what unfolds over the course of the film’s runtime is more performative than explorative. With only the vaguest of explanations, Eleni is thrust into the midst of an already problematic and highly inappropriate relationship between Douglas and his day nurse Mona. Immediately, Eleni and Douglas fall into their own fraught dynamic that dips into power play and becomes overtly sexual with little more than a phone call. From here, the trio enter a bizarre, twisted relationship that eventually leads to their breakup, a strange scene of nurse debauchery and, aghast, murder!? We’re to believe, in the span of 15 minutes and nothing more than a few looks, that Douglas has great power over women and that Eleni, not to mention many of the other nurses, is so broken that she falls under his spell.
Bruce McKenzie is charismatic as Douglas but he’s not selling the all-powerful cult-status leader persona. Cemre Paksoy, who starred in Bernstein’s short film and makes her feature film debut here as Eleni, has emotive features but her stares, of which there are many, are languid. They’re supposed to express how mesmerized she is by Douglas but there’s so little relationship development or emotional draw to either character that the entire thing feels vacant. Eleonore Hendricks is equally bland as Mona and Mimi Rogers is largely wasted as Doctor Mann.
While Night Nurse doesn’t manage to develop any sort of tension, Bernstein does show some interesting qualities as a writer and director. Her dialog is sparse, and she relies heavily on moments of silence and performance to deliver emotional punches. While I appreciate her “show don’t tell” approach, it doesn’t work here, in part because her characters are badly under-written and because her actors aren’t quite up to the task.
Some of the fresco-like scenes, captured by cinematographer Lidia Nikonova, are visually interesting and again, the approach to quiet moments as a key storytelling tool is interesting, but here they add little to the storytelling. The entire movie feels like half-conceived ideas and images that are strung together by a scant attempt at story.
While there are glimpses of interesting concepts here, Night Nurse is bogged down by a a plethora of odd plot points, how does no one notice that the nurses are all incompetent?, mediocre performances, an astonishingly slow pace, and an attempt to be provocative that doesn’t deliver.
