peteg's blog - noise - movies - 2022 01 15 TheNest

The Nest

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A pointer from Jason Di Rosso. He sold it as a sophisticated take on adult relationships. Initially one is lead to believe that Jude Law will provide a nuanced portrayal of a 1980s trader-Englishman pining for the damp and grim skies of home, but this is soon enough blown away by excessive, transparent, cliched mendacity and grasping. I think we're supposed to be sympathetic to his American quasi-trophy wife Carrie Coon (from Chicago) but her neglect of her horse left me cold. Overall it's very heavy-handed and nowhere close to Wall Street or Lady Macbeth (to stake out the theme and the proximate genre). The soundtrack is pretty much left of the dial. Perhaps the lack of humour is its biggest failing.

Ben Kenigsberg. Yes, many scenes are paralleled (the breakfasts, Law waking Coon with a cup of coffee, Coon cutting loose at a nightclub while her daughter learns about speed, etc. etc.) but things are entirely stereotypical. Peter Bradshaw: there's no evidence the family was happy in the U.S.A.; he seems to have missed all the expository dialogue. On the other hand I entirely missed the supernatural interludes. Annabel Brady-Brown draws the obvious links with The Talented Mr Ripley.