SPOILER-FREE PLOT SUMMARY
When a retirement community starts losing nurses at a more rapid pace than usual, Eleni (played by Cemre Paksoy, in her feature film debut) applies for a job. The patient assigned to her is Douglas (Bruce McKenzie), an aging, seemingly senile, resident who has an interesting relationship with his daytime nurse Mona (Eleonore Hendricks). While working a shift, Eleni finds Douglas making a weird phone call during the early morning hours. Her first inclination is to help but slowly figures out the nature of these calls only after she’s dragged into them. But, instead of report him and the scam he’s engineering, Eleni finds that there’s a certain dangerous thrill that comes along with it. The game is no longer just scamming the elderly out of money but rather resisting the temptation of what has become a dark, twisted obsession. Or is it delusion?
SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
On paper, this is a hell of an idea. A timid, innocent young nurse wants to use her profession to help the elderly but is drawn into an unexpected scam that uncovers a deeply-rooted, very well hidden-away — maybe even to her — sexual proclivity. The issue with NIGHT NURSE isn’t the premise, it’s the execution.
Paksoy is great. She draws you in effortlessly and makes the audience feel a wide range of emotions, both expected and unexpected. McKenzie, however, just didn’t hit right. He was pretty vanilla but, as the lead antagonist, you don’t need vanilla. The archetype of the character is an old man with a strange hold over his harem of women who’s also doing horrible things to his peers. You need a little more creepy, a little more unsettledness in the performance than what McKenzie brings.
It’s also a 95 minute movie that feels more like two hours. The assumption is because there’s not a lot of action but more so a great degree of slow, methodic, psychological gymnastics going on instead. Regardless, NIGHT NURSE feels longer than it is and that’s never a good thing.
Georgia Bernstein does an admirable job in her feature film directorial debut and that should be commended. It’s not easy to take this subject matter, use fresh faces as your leads and deliver a captivating movie. While it has it’s drawbacks, NIGHT NURSE is an artsy psychoerotic thriller that provides enough twists and turns to deliver on its premise.
JKG SCORE: 6.5 out of 10
Untitled Film Project 