As I drove away from a screening for the new movie, Nerve, Monday night, I shook my head about the preposterous game in which its characters participate. Simultaneously, I had to slow down (and stop once) for several groups of people, face down in their mobile devices as they searched for Pokemon, oblivious to the reality surrounding them. I suddenly realized nothing in the world of social technology should surprise me anymore, whether it’s people hunting for virtual monsters or people accepting online dares to earn money.
When Nerve began, I thought it might be another Unfriended, a variation on the found footage subgenre where the story unfolds completely “online.” However, it turns out it’s a device used only sparingly to initially draw us into the game, as if we ourselves were going to be participants. For a movie not made for my demographic, it helped me understand how the game worked, although the movie left me with plenty of other questions. I have a feeling that under scrutiny, it would leave anyone with questions.
Luckily, I suppose, Nerve moves so quickly and is just entertaining enough that you don’t have time to place it under much scrutiny. Yeah, it may not make complete sense, but we’re used to suspending our disbelief in the heat of the summer movie season anyway. There’s nothing blatant enough here to make you angry and no real down time to bore you. If you can sit back and relax, pick from a bucket of popcorn and sip on a gallon of soda, there are worse ways to spend less than an hour and a half of idle time.
Emma Roberts and Dave Franco are Vee and Ian, two “Players” in the game where online “Watchers” dictate their every movement. Based on their appearances in other movies lately, the actors seem too old for their roles, particularly Roberts, who the movie would have us believe is a high school senior. Franco is a little more believable because his age is never stated and his youthful energy and good looks allow him a wider range. The Watchers like them and arrange dares and situations that pair them, but then eventually pit them against each other.
There can be only one winner. The normally quiet and reserved Vee rebels to prove something to herself and others and she soon surpasses game favorites Sydney (Emily Meade), her best friend, and Ty (Colson Baker aka Machine Gun Kelly), a Mad Max-type character who will stop at nothing to win. He’s the closest thing to a substantive bad guy in Nerve. The real villains are all the Watchers, who place the game participants in increasingly dangerous situations, dangling huge amounts of money in front of them if they complete their dares.
Nerve was written by Jessica Sharzer (American Horror Story) from a novel by Jeanne Ryan. As directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman (Paranormal Activity 3 and 4), it’s sometimes a mess of blurred images, incorporating pixelated shots from mobile devices. It’s also very busy, as text messages and online comments sometimes clutter the screen. Like I said, the movie wasn’t made for me. And I’m not sure its intended audience will see it in theaters. However, when it’s available on a smaller screen, it’s going to be a winning game.
