By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3 cats
Director: Nikyatu Jusu
Starring: Anna Diop | Leslie Uggams | Michelle Monaghan | Morgan Spector | Rose Decker | Sinqua Walls
Country: united_states
Year: 2022
Running time: 97
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10931784/reference/
Brett says: “NANNY is a hybrid genre film based loosely on the story of director Nikyatu Jusu’s own mother and her experience with domestic work in New York City. The genre elements include West African folklore to amplify the horror of the work experience while facing many of the challenges of day-to-day living in general.
“The film features a prominent water motif throughout, a clear representation of the drowning metaphor that protagonist Aisha (Anna Diop) experiences in her struggles. Her ultimate goal is to make a way for her son in Senegal to join her in New York. Her domestic work is suffocating, as are the pressures of resolving her past struggles and finding a way to form new personal connections in her city experience.
“The mythos of the film is interesting in that there does not seem to be a standard duality as seen in many religions or lore traditions. The beings represented in the film are elements of chaos that are not boxed in with defined roles, a fitting summary of Aisha’s experience and character development.
“Perhaps the most outstanding quality of the film outside of the more obvious tools being used to create a story and emotional build is the one understated theme that lies beneath the more superficial layers. Aisha is surrounded by a cast of characters (both on and off camera) that all have different experiences on spectrum of the human psyche. These different characters offer interesting crossovers—a Venn diagram, if you will—of how intuition, contemplation, and mental illness border each other and can cross into each other’s lanes.
“NANNY is the concept of denial personified as a living nightmare. One would be hard-pressed to find the lore within as part of any other widely known motion picture. This attention to the underrepresented traditions of West Africa is clearly the banner that the director intends to wave while presenting a very human story to pair it with. 3 cats out of 5“