The Nest (2020)

Film: The Nest (2020)

Stars: Jude Law, Carrie Coon, Charlie Shotwell, Oona Roche, Anne Reid, Michael Culkin

Director: Sean Durkin

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

One of the weirder aspects of 2020 in terms of my film-watching is the lack of trailers.  While I have watched trailers for films, they haven't been an omnipresent part of my life, not in the way they usually are.  This time of year, I'd have been seeing, say, the trailers for Soul and Wonder Woman virtually every three days as I plopped into another screening leading up to Christmas.  In 2020, though, I don't have that experience.  There isn't a ubiquity with movies.  This means that I'm less likely to take chances on random films that I might otherwise not (movie trailers, like most advertisements, work to some degree, and seen enough times will make me want to check out a picture), but it also means I don't know what I'm getting into for a film unless it's a sequel or remake.  I realized that about twenty minutes into The Nest, a drama from earlier this year with two leads so good I didn't feel I needed to test drive it with critical consensus (Coon & Law are enough to "buy the ticket"), but I also had no clue what direction we were heading.  This was one of several thrilling aspects about The Nest, a complicated look at marriage & money that doesn't exactly pay off, but is intriguing enough to be worth your time.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie focuses on Rory O'Hara (Law), an English businessman, and his horse trainer wife Allison (Coon), who are living in 1980's New York City when Rory decides that a job opportunity in the UK affords him a new lease on life.  Allison is reluctant (they and their two children have moved a lot for Rory's jobs, and she doesn't want to uproot them yet again), but she acquiesces when Rory insists it's a good financial opportunity for the family.  As they move, Rory seems successful, but this turns out to be smoke-and-mirrors.  He is running the family into-the-ground with debt, and despite their opulent surroundings, they are behind on their bills & risking their financial security to appear wealthy.  This causes trouble in their marriage & parenting, as Allison becomes an absent mother and Rory's need to sink risky deals causes strife at work, with him living a false life.  The film ends with their lives found out, with Allison uncovering that her husband is not, in fact, a wealthy success but barely making ends meet (she does this at a business dinner), and the family is forced to confront, honestly but now together, their collective lies about their situation (so that they can actually be happy).

The Nest has a few moments of sheer brilliance.  The best part is coming from Law's & Coon's performances, because they play Rory & Allison as if we're in the middle of a movie from the start.  Allison has growth, but she starts out already knowing her husband is probably going to fail-you see that in the way she hoards her own money.  We initially assume this is because he doesn't share it with her, or because she's hiding a secret...but the movie's script (and the enigmatic musical score keying this up as more of a thriller or horror film than marital drama) turns our assumptions about this woman on their heads as we learn she's protecting the money from her husband, not hoarding it, because she knows he'll spend this money.

This confidence about the characters really works from the start nearly to the finish, as we spend much of the movie rethinking past actions.  Rory goes to meet his long-ignored mother (Anne Reid in a great cameo), and we again assume that she's not part of his life because of some problem of his childhood, but as the movie goes, we understand that Rory is a constant liar, needing to better himself (even without hard work), and it's possible his mother couldn't handle that anymore in her life.  

These sharp observations from the lead actors are so terrific, that it almost makes up for the movie not really going anywhere.  The ending is a cheat-I don't honestly know how the movie should've ended, but them just pretending that everything is suddenly going to be okay runs counter to a lot of the rest of the film.  It also doesn't help that there was such ominous attitude toward the house, and the dead horse (it's a red herring, but occasionally the hints that we're about to enter a horror movie feel like a distraction more than a twist on our expectations), that you leave wanting more mystery, more climax, to the film's ending.  But it's a really great piece-of-work from lead actors Law & Coon, both providing mountains of backstory to their portrayals.