Review of Nerve (2016) by Laura B — 31 Dec 2016

An integral part of childhood Is the dare. Our culture denies young people a traditionally delineated set of trials designed to prove qualities such as courage, ingenuity, and resourcefulness. Apparently, the need is still there since every child at one time will receive a dare. Being called out in front of your peers is a powerful social incentive that frequently leads an individual to perform a task that is awkward, embarrassing or foolishly dangerous, we never grow out of this aspect of the competitive nature, raising the emotional stakes. The movie 'Nerve' attempts to examine the social pressure of a dare during the teen years taking the level of risk from silly to potentially lethal. It bears noting that undoubtedly this film targeted towards the millennials and those of us that 10¢ comic book may not fully appreciate some of the stylistic choices or recall the incredible priority contemporary acceptance played in driving our actions. In cases where the generation gap induces a significant effect on relating to the characters and circumstance, I do try to extrapolate my experience of the movie to how successfully the targeted audience would perceive it. With that concession in mind, I could conclude that the high-concept nature of the story juxtaposed to the emphasis on fast-paced imagery in place of detailed exposition was intentional. This supposition would, therefore, lead me to the distinct possibility that I was not as fully able to watch this movie through that youthful perspective. During this consideration, I will try to reach a reasonable compromise to support my critique.

Venus "Vee" Delmonico (Emma Roberts), is a high school senior in Staten Island, doing what most teens are apt to do, sitting in front of her computer screen. As the movie opens the computer is presenting Vee with a dilemma familiar to high school in their last year, whether to accept our decline approved admission to an out of state college. The source of the quagmire is her mother, Nancy (Juliette Lewis), is pressuring Vee to attend a local school and remain at home. Nancy is reticent to see her daughter leave home because she is still grieving the death of her son. The directors, Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, utilize what is rapidly becoming de rigueur for teen-oriented movies, visualizing text messages on the screen and employing shots of a video chat. While this technology may be something baby boomers are aware of and, perhaps even use, it is not such a deeply infused means of communication as it is for teenagers. The chat is with Vee's best friend, Sydney (Emily Meade). Sydney is outgoing with an adventurous spirit. She has been pushing Vee to break out of her comfort zone. Sydney introduces Vee to an online game, 'Nerve,' described as truth or dare without the option of truth. There are two ways to participate, players and watchers. The players must accept a series of increasing uncomfortable dares until in the final rounds the escalate to deadly. The watchers pay to be voyeurs, watching and video documenting the players executing their prescribed dares. The level and subsequent rewards determined by the number of followers the player accumulates and the risk involved. Sydney has thousands of followers and has reached a substantial ranking. As is frequently integral to modern social hierarchy is measured by such criteria as followers, hits and likes. Sydney overly defined her self-worth in such a fashion.

The story depicts Vee as being in a very fragile emotional state, caught between pressure to remain at home for college and Sydney calling her out on being timid and overly safe. Vee signs on to Nerve and after a moment of hesitation pushes the button marked Player. The game is hosted on the dark web and scans social media sites for accurate, substantial personal information about the player. This crucial plot point depends on an unfortunate fact that a significant number of teenagers live a large portion of their lives online routinely post personal data for anyone to review. Through this, the gamer runners know that Vee is very shy around boys, so her first dare of the game is to kiss a stranger. She notices a young man, Ian (Dave Franco), reading her favorite book, Virginia Woofer's 'To the Lighthouse,' Vee walks over and kisses him. $200 posted to her account. It turns out that Ian is also playing Nerve. His dare was to sit in that location reading that book. By establishing a plot device that will prove to be necessary to drive the central theme of the story, the game is not just about getting people to accept escalating dare, the players directly manipulated, and the watchers are routinely used to establish the requisite circumstances.

Just as Ian was about to leave he receives a dare to bring Vee into Manhattan. She is invigorated by the experience and agrees; the dares intensify from wearing expensive clothing in a store to leaving after the watchers have removed their clothing forcing them to flee in their underwear. Vee begins to attract followers and rapidly advance in in the rankings after Ian must drive a motorcycle at 60 mph while blindfolded with Vee navigating. That propels them into the top ten which infuriates Sydney who precipitously drops in her standing. Nancy becomes suspicious of the increasingly large deposits made into their bank account but Vee's best male friend, Tommy (Miles Heizer), devises a cover story, Vee has been playing legal online poker. Conveniently, he also happens to be a hacker with advanced skills. There are numerous problems with these story points that brought me out of the context of the narrative. For Vee, a young woman of at least eighteen why is her bank account tied to her mother allowing Mom to be notified of account activity. Vee's mother is incredibly nonchalant upon learning jer teenage daughter gas suddenly become a professional poker player. The questions the sudden deposits occurring at night but they are completely assuaged with the poker excuse parents in teen flicks are notoriously unaware, but this is difficult to deal with, at least if the details of the story, continuity, and narrative integrity are at all necessary.

Vee's character arc proceeding from afraid to kiss a stranger to walking across a ladder connecting two windows ten stories above the ground requires the disintegration of lifelong inhibitions in the space of several hours. I can understand why Sylvia became so jealous of Vee; she had been steadily playing the game for a significant amount of time and her overly reserved best friend passes her in the first hours of playing the game. Perhaps the target demographic is satiated with the high-octane stunt work and special effects, but it comes across as all sizzle without the steak. Despite those notable missteps aside I still found the movie to be a reasonable popcorn movie particularly if enjoyed with some friends. The synergy created by such a gathering will offset many of the deficiencies inherently found in the movie. There are some compelling performances contained in the film most notably from Ms. Roberts. Her recent work, primarily of television, has been among her best performances of her career. Her participation as a member of the 'American Horror Story' rotating troupe continues to be excellent exhibiting her ability to handle drama and horror. In contrast her portrayal in the satirically dark comedy, 'Scream Queens.' In both instances, her roles focus on driven, self-serving people that the audience loves to hate. The role of Vee is such a complete 180º turn-about providing a showcase for the range and diversity of this talented young woman's abilities.