Immigrant nanny Aisha, piecing together a new life in New York City while caring for the child of an Upper East Side family, is forced to confront a concealed truth that threatens to shatter her precarious American Dream.
In her feature film directorial debut, writer-director Nikyatu Jusu bites off more than she can chew with her overambitious “Nanny.” Not knowing if she wants to make a horror, a thriller, a psychological horror thriller, or a straight-up drama, she takes a stab (no pun intended) at all of the aforementioned genres, and unfortunately, none of them stick. While she most certainly displays proficiency behind the camera, her writing skills need improvement.
Anna Diop plays Aisha, an immigrant from Senegal who recently emigrated to New York. She is hired by a well-off couple, Amy and Adam (Michelle Monaghan and Morgan Spector), to help care for their young daughter, Rose (Rose Decker). Aisha works hard to bring her young son Lamine (Jahleel Kamara) to live with her in the United States, but as she begins her new job, an evil presence plagues her life and dreams. It torments her with images of death and destruction, and her reality begins to crumble, and her nightmares become more frightening. Now she must figure out who or what is tearing her life apart before Lamine lands on her doorstep.
Jusu is more than capable of extracting good performances from her cast, especially Anna Diop in the leading role, but her story is inconsistent and chaotic; she introduces sub-plots she spends a lot of time working on, only to leave them in the rear-view mirror without any resolve, never to be mentioned again. We are told Rose has an eating disorder, but her ailment miraculously disappears when Aisha comes into the picture. The movie’s end is heartbreaking and traumatic, but before we can register the events, a new happy denouement is suddenly thrust upon us, and then the movie is over. The story is tumultuous and ambiguous, and Ms. Jusu seems incapable of telling the story she wants to divulge; instead, she gets caught up in focusing on elements that are unimportant to the overall narrative and directs attention away from those that are. Maybe in her next outing, Ms. Jusu will take the time to tell a good story.
In Select Theaters Wednesday, November 23rd, expands to additional markets December 2nd,
and on Prime Video Friday, December 16th
