2008, USA
Crime, Drama, Romance
READ THE REVIEW AT The Desert Sun.
After a childhood of abuse has left her incapable of healthy relationships and 15 years in a miserable marriage has done nothing to heal her, a woman searches for an escape. In Downloading Nancy, the darkest rabbit hole is pursued, and director Johan Renck leads his characters deep into the recesses of pain and a need for acknowledgment.
Debuting in such dark waters of feature film seems odd for the Swedish director of Nike commercials and Madonna music videos, but Renck swims swiftly in the murky waters with true sympathy for his damned Nancy and her lack of desire to find a rosy new outlook. Instead, Nancy prowls the internet for an accomplice to her fate: a night that will release her from her mortal coil.
Maria Bello (A History of Violence) takes on the burdened life of Nancy, a woman who has honed her hopelessness to a fine point, accepting her struggles as her only method of connecting to others. The pain of cutting herself slices through the fog of nothingness and provides a reminder that she can still feel something. Her cries for help bounce off of the unresponsive ears of her husband, portrayed with annoyed distance by Rufus Sewell (The Illusionist), who only hears the pleas at her most desperate hour.
Outside of her therapist (Amy Brenneman, "Judging Amy") to whom Nancy confesses everything but never fully trusts, her true confident becomes her internet connection, Louis (Jason Patric, Rush), who allows her to live in her perfect world, no matter how harmful. Louis holds a similar respect for Nancy's wishes as the star-crossed pair in Leaving Las Vegas, as Louis slowly becomes more concerned with saving her despite being aware that such a mission is doomed.
Time skips between glimpses of a marriage decomposed by two uninvolved entities, a dangerous new relationship arranged over e-mail and a meeting between husband and lover-of-necessity. Muted colors echo the drab existences of all involved, each focused on a goal most would not deign to consider. As Nancy equates violence with love, her physical solace is found in methods demeaning and inhumane. Yet she requests the ultimate expression of such violence for her swan song, her need to connect one last time in a way that only she can appreciate.
Downloading Nancy is a disturbing ode to the loneliest of lonely hearts, those who seem to exist for others to trample upon and have no yearning or awareness of an exit to a better life. This is a tough film with no easy answers and disturbingly claims to be inspired by true events. Perhaps this is meant in the broadest sense -- a Morse code warning to lost souls, or better yet, to those who are losing them.