In The nest, a family moves into an English country mansion filled with opulent rooms, creaking staircases and secret passageways. The setting is familiar for a horror movie: a happy couple buy a mysterious property and discover, upon arrival, that something is seriously wrong with the house. The film, directed by Sean Durkin, opens with appropriate presumption, a jarring piano score echoing across the title card. But in this case, it’s not the house that’s the problem, it’s the family and the greedy quest for status that first led them to this gargantuan mansion.
The nest is a long-awaited and brilliant sequel to Durkin, which emerged in 2011 with its film debut, Martha Marcy May Marlene, but had not directed a film since. Her early work also had the overtones of a horror movie and the narrative meat of a serious family drama, exploring the strained relationship between two sisters after one is freed from a family-like collective. Manson family. Nothing in The nest is every bit as dramatic as a murderous cult, but the same sense of dread pervades the thriller, as Rory (played by Jude Law) and Allison O’Hara (Carrie Coon) watch their relationship crumble under the financial burden of the colossal house they’ve bought.
Essentially a haunted house movie without any ghosts, The nest has all the storytelling control that distinguished Durkin’s first film. Every little emotional change and every new resentment registers, creating a deeper conflict. And though the plot is tightly centered around the central couple and propelled by Law and Coon’s career best work, Durkin spins a larger thread over a decade of excess (the film is set in the 1980s) and l illusory attraction of the ascending class. mobility. In The nestwealth can rot the mind as badly as any supernatural possession, a message that transcends its period setting.
The film is primarily set in Britain, where Durkin spent much of his teenage years. the land is dotted with grand buildings and crumbling estates, monuments to centuries of income stratification. Rory, a working-class Londoner who found success as a stockbroker in New York, returns to the UK to take advantage of the Margaret Thatcher-era economic boom. He gets his family back – his horse trainer wife, Allison; his daughter from a previous marriage, Sam (Oona Roche); and their son, Ben (Charlie Shotwell) — and moves them into a house so massive they can’t find a use for half the rooms.
As global stock market gains begin to level off, Rory’s dreams of growing his capital begin to fade; his debts accumulate and the financial bets disintegrate his savings. The law is terribly well molded here. The actor has emerged as a handsome Hollywood boy in films such as The Talented Mr. Ripley, but he became far more interesting playing men whose waning boyish charms were supplanted by grittier desperation. Best examples so far included Anna Karenina and Vox Luxbut The nest is my favorite so far, showing Law seductive one moment and seething and pathetic the next.
Coon has been one of the most captivating performers of the decade since she emerged, almost out of nowhere, in 2014 with Leftovers and missing girl (before that, she had a burgeoning stage career). Since then, she has given terrific supporting roles in films such as The post office and widows, but it’s the first film to cast her in a meaty role, and she does wonders with it. Allison is beautiful, elegant, and smart, but Coon communicates her underlying anxiety and insecurity, suggesting her unease with their new home from the second she walks in. As Rory’s career begins to falter and the family suffers, Allison is the conduit for much of that pain. She tries to balance the odd behavior of her children, the growing rift with her husband, and the physical decline of a home she never wanted to be in.
Now available for rental and purchase online, The nest is not as brutal a visual experience as it may seem; it’s a slow burn, peppered with romantic interludes, raw tension and bittersweet comedy. Few storytellers working in movies today take the time to lay the emotional groundwork for each character. Durkin does, and when his characters crack, the destruction is all the more pronounced. The nest is one of the best films of the year: although it is set in the past, it is about the feeling of one’s own home turning against you when the outside world seems all the more hostile to you – a theme that resonates far beyond its period.
