the nest

In the 1980s, one of the Ladies’ Home Journal’s most popular features was “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” drawing from the files of marital therapists and counselors. Following that model, writer/director Sean Durkin introduces hot-shot British commodities broker Rory O’Hara who leaves Wall Street to return to the U.K. with his American wife Allison, an avid equestrian, and two children: young Benjamin and his teenage half-sister Samantha.

The auteur, who broke out with the acclaimed 2011 psychological drama “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” has recruited two of the best actors working today to roost in “The Nest”: Jude Law (the “Sherlock Holmes” series) and Carrie Coon (“Gone Girl”).

Director Sean Durkin made Mary Marcy May Marlene in 2011, then lapsed until writing and directing The Nest this year. Both films are opaque, unresolved, mysterious, tense, and unsatisfying. Like MMMM, The Nest pretends to art, so do not expect the film to explain the title. No nest here.