NERVE
DIRECTOR: Todd Williams
CAST: John Cusack, Samuel L Jackson, Isabelle Fuhrman, Clark Sarullo, Ethan Andrew Casto, Owen Teague, Stacy Keach
CLASSIFICATION: 16 HV
RUNNING TIME: 97 minutes
RATING: 2 stars (out of 5)
Web platforms and smartphone apps are evolving so quickly that a game like Nerve seems like it might be available for download already.
Combining live video-streaming functions and social media features, the fictional mobile app aggregates online communities of “watchers” who interact with “players” competing for cash by completing challenges that are originated by participants over a 24-hour period.Described as “a game like Truth or Dare, minus the truth,” Nerve appears to have the potential to thrive on the anonymity of online trolling and the quest for instant celebrity.
With its young cast and a multiplatform media campaign, Nerve won’t need to rely on going viral to find its audience, but it’s unlikely to be trending for long once viewers digest its simplistically cautionary message. The issue partly is the filmmakers’ muddled social-engineering perspective that almost instantly transforms a teen with average online habits into an impulsive daredevil with the mere adoption of a new app.
Shy, responsible high school senior, Venus “Vee” Delmonico (Roberts), has been comfortable living her life in the shadow of her more outgoing best friend, Sydney (Meade), until Sydney challenges her to live a little for a change. Joining the Nerve community, where “watchers pay to watch and players play to win cash and glory” by accepting and completing dares that are broadcast to Nerve participants on the players’ smartphones, Vee meets Ian (Franco) after targeting him on her first challenge to kiss a stranger in public and win $100.
Ian also is a player, and the online watchers pair them up to ride his motorcycle into Manhattan, where they complete tasks that brings them payouts into the thousands of dollars. Vee begins to question her impulsiveness once it becomes obvious that the app has extracted an alarming amount of information from her digital footprint that might be putting her friends and family at risk, as well as her own personal safety.
It won’t be any surprise where the filmmakers come down on the issue of online excess, but with virtual reality and artificial intelligence apps looming as the next major tech advances, the hand-wringing over the proliferation of selfie culture, celebrity fixation and unexamined over-sharing only emphasises the appearance of a widening generational divide between early adopters and their ill-equipped imitators.
Fortunately, Schulman and Joost keep the film visually engaging by combining characteristics of video game play, social-media interactivity and web-based video sharing with a style that emphasises DP Michael Simmonds’s neon-leaning night-time lighting. All that busyness distracts from the impression that Roberts and Franco don’t look like teens, although they form a good team as long as they’re pursuing challenges rather than sharing their nascent emotions or attempting to unravel the intricacies of the game. –TheHollywood Reporter
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