The erotic thriller has become a lost art, ever since it started in the late ‘80s until it peaked in the ‘90s. With the exception of The Handmaiden and Bendetta, the genre has seen a severe decline in quality, with more recent attempts being mediocre, modestly successful to say the least. It’s not on the filmmakers’ lack of trying, or the oversaturation of the audiences with a very bold TV when it comes to showing nudity, but it’s difficult in a world where the main target audience -Gen Z- expresses in 2023 that they want less sex on screen. This wave of sanitized filmmaking has been mercifully upturned by bold new trials like Halina Reijn’s Babygirl and Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex, until we reach a fresh, new erotic thriller, faithful to its genere elements to the bone with empowering decade-appropriate enhancements, and that is Night Nurse.
At the perfect runtime of 95 minutes, Night Nurse stands as a tightly written, generously shot thriller. There’s no scene that seems out of place or inserted as a filler to make up for poor writing. From the first scenes, director Georgia Bernstein traps us in her world of objectified bodies, but instead of beautiful, sexy, gorgeous bodies, they are the bodies of the elderly and their young nurse companions. One body after the other, headless and exciting, walk in the swimming pool, until the camera slowly moves up, and the scene cuts to Eleni (Cemre Paksoy), our main protagonist.
Eleni starts work at a luxury retirement community, when she is assigned Douglas (a brilliant Bruce McKenzie), an enigmatic older patient. They start playing a cat and mouse game that tests the boundary of caregiver and patient. However, Douglas is not a patient but more of a part of a generation that modern society has treated as a burden that needs to be sent to a home, to be watched and patiently waited on until their death.
Bernstein does outstanding work with her extreme close-ups. Characters feel trapped, suffocating in tight frames that feel too small for their faces and their bodies. But the film won’t have worked if not for the brilliant acting from McKenzie who elevates Douglas to another level of hungry, withering, possession. His piercing, stunning blue eyes, and his forlorn gaze laced with hunger and desire create a tangible tension between him and Eleni, whom he draws to his world even further. The chemistry between him and Paksoy is excellent and sizzling, leaving the viewer trapped with them behind the sad, luxurious walls of this compound.
The erotic attraction that happens in this story comes from the dooming feeling of permanence, these are people who know they are bound to this place until their death. But it’s not just them, the caregivers are trapped as well. Some of them choosing this life by choice, like Eleni, others due to financial reward and lack of better work opportunities. But it’s sad and oppressive, thus, the insane back and forth between two people desperate for connection in a santizied world. It’s also very brave of Bernstein to show how sexual an old person can get, it’s not just sunshine and a warm, grandma’s pies feelings that they evoke. But there’s a whole secret life to sexuality in people fading away in retirement communities, and Bernstein perfectly captures that through Douglas’s feistiness.
It’s also those corners of trapped people further trapped by their mindless, endless jobs. By the mere existences that lead to nothing in their lives. It’s not just Bernstein that brings magic to our screens with her camera work, but also DP Lidia Nikonova. They both create mazes of humanity: lusting and yearning, mourning and decaying. In all its ugly perversion, this erotic thriller is a masterpiece.
Night Nurse brings back the dirty pleasurable indulgence in something repulsive but highly attractive. With two great actors at the helm of the project, and an adept female filmmaker that condenses the gaze into a non-misogynistic, sexy pleasure, this film is for everyone wanting escapism, with a hint of danger in the movie theater.
Night Nurse brings back the dirty pleasurable indulgence in something repulsive but highly attractive.
-
GVN Rating
Jaylan Salah Salman is an Egyptian poet, translator, and film critic for InSession Film, Geek Vibes Nation, and Moviejawn. She has published two poetry collections and translated fourteen books for International Languages House publishing company. She began her first web series on YouTube, “The JayDays,” where she comments on films and other daily life antics. On her free days, she searches for recipes to cook while reviewing movies.
