Maria Bello Movie:

Downloading Nancy [Blu-ray] Reviews:
A Tortured Soul
2009-12-15 - "Downloading Nancy"

A Tortured Soul

Amos Lassen

Be on the lookout for Strand Releasing's, "Downloading Nancy" and decide for yourself what you think about this film. I found it to be totally engrossing. Nancy (Maria Bello) is a housewife who is sick of her life and wants it to be over. Instead of killing herself, she hires a stranger from the Internet to do so but fate takes a strange turn when she meets the person she hired (Jason Patric) and they fall in love. Nancy realizes that love and murder just do not go together.
The plot is quite simple but it is nevertheless extraordinary. The new lover makes Nancy's husband explain why his wife is so unhappy and we learn that Nancy had been sexually abused as a child. Her marriage is ice cold, dead. She becomes involved in a cycle of destruction and we feel a cloud of darkness over this movie. Nancy enjoys pain that is self inflicted. Bello as Nancy is spectacular. She seems to glow with defeat; she never smiles and when she does she does so desperately.
This is not an easy movie to watch as it shows us a woman who is consumed by pain and because the film is so well made we are constantly aware of that. Here is a movie about empathy but it is hard to empathize with so much pain. I find myself still thinking about the movie long after I saw it. Some may feel that the movie is too dark but it is that darkness that makes it so compelling I am sure that many will not agree with me on this but I do feel that this is an exceptional look at pain. Perhaps this is because pan is so painful and we prefer to look the other way.


How Can You Kill Someone When They're Already Dead?
2009-06-25 - "Downloading Nancy" is about people caught in their own private traps. The title character in particular (Maria Bello) only feels when she's in pain, and her one wish is to die. But she doesn't want to commit suicide; what she wants is for someone to kill her, someone who will use her, hurt her, make her feel as worthless as she thinks--no, as she knows--she is. In the meantime, she will remind herself how worthless she is by hurting herself with razor blades. Love is not a concept she understands or even tries to understand. Her mind is screaming madhouse of melodrama, and we're made to think it's the product of an abusive childhood. It very well may be, but there's really no way to know for sure. All we do know is that, whatever Nancy went through, as a child or as an adult, she's completely unequipped to handle life, so much so that she actively seeks a release.

Here enters Louis Farley (Jason Patric), a man with two children he hasn't seen in years, although he remembers their ages as four and seven. After communicating for some time via e-mail, Nancy agrees to meet Louis at a bus station in Baltimore. They then engage in days of violent sexual acts at his house, which is covered floor to ceiling with video cassettes stacked on shelves. Nancy wants this. It's the only way she knows how to cope with her feelings. She actually feels something when a cigarette is shoved into her flesh and a broken shard of glass traces her body. And Louis is more than happy to give Nancy what she wants. At least, he is at first; what seemed so perfect and orderly on a computer screen eventually becomes far too real for him. Why? Because he knows her. He understands her. He loves her.

Left behind is Nancy's hopeless husband, Albert (Rufus Sewell), who could never satisfy his wife even if she didn't want to be abused. His life is made up of plastic-covered furniture and a basement converted into a mini putting green, with the walls painted to look like a sprawling golf course. Frequent shots of his shoeless feet suggest a need to maintain cleanliness, or the very least some semblance of order. When it becomes clear that Nancy has been gone for too long, he makes no effort find her. He doesn't even call the police to file a missing person report. And yet, when Louis pays him a visit, Albert angrily, violently demands to know where his wife is. It has nothing to do with love; he just wants things to go back to the way they used to be. It's predictable. It's orderly. It's comforting routine.

Intertwined with this are periodic flashbacks to Nancy's therapy sessions with Carol (Amy Brenneman), who seems genuinely baffled by Nancy and her irrational state of mind. Carol takes a lot of notes and spouts generic statements about how Nancy feels, which is to say that she's well-meaning but unqualified. Indeed, Nancy doesn't want to be helped in that way. What does it say that she's willing to end her life only if someone does it for her? If she's so unhappy, why can't she just kill herself? Could she, perhaps, be deluding herself into thinking that guiding her own murder is somehow different and more acceptable than suicide? This is never addressed in the film, but the fact that she pursues Louis so fervently brings up a number of fascinating questions.

This movie, apparently based on true events, was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. It also greatly divided audiences, a number of guests having left the screening room before the film ended. In the few weeks since opening in limited release, it has earned a 19% approval rating at Rottentomatoes.com, the general consensus being that it's well-made but far too unsettling to sit through. From the din of almost unanimous hatred comes a single voice, my voice, boldly asserting that "Downloading Nancy" is one of the year's best films. I agree that it's an unpleasant story about unpleasant characters in an unpleasant situation, but blast it all, it convinced me. I could easily invest in what I was watching. I actually felt something for the characters even though I didn't always understand them. I witnessed Nancy's downward spiral and had a reaction to it, which is exactly what was supposed to happen.

Bello's performance in particular reveals a side few actors have the nerve to reveal. We see not a role being played but a full emotional and physical experience, a raw portrayal of a mentally broken woman well past the point of repair. To play this character requires bravery and skill, and by allowing herself to be so psychologically vulnerable, Bello proves that she has them both. She completely inhabits Nancy. She makes her real. She persuades you to see things from her perspective, skewed though it may be. The tagline on the poster proclaims that "Downloading Nancy" is, "The most controversial film you will see this year," and I wholeheartedly agree--not everyone will appreciate a story about a woman that wants to be killed. But consider this: How can you kill someone when they're already dead?