Intensity 🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed and Written by Nikyatu Jusu
Nanny is a gripping immigrant tale oozing with drama but light on horror. Anna Diop conveys the trauma of a mother struggling with the separation from her child, where supernatural events act as ominous harbingers.
Nanny proves Blumhouse is more than just a producer of PG-13 teen-themed franchise wanna-be films. This examination examines a woman’s struggles trying to chase the American Dream and fulfill all of her immigrant hopes and dreams despite the deck seemingly stacked against her. It resonates with independent film bona fides. The characters are rich and complicated.
The film lacks sustained scares, however. There are many times in this film when the soundtrack wells ominously and then shrugs off potentially scary situations. Despite the lack of raw horror, there is a dark and emotionally rich story at play.
The Cast
- Anna Diop plays Aisha, a New York City immigrant from Dakar, Senegal, who works as a nanny for a wealthy Upper East Side couple in order to earn enough money to bring her son over from Africa.
- Michelle Monaghan plays Amy, an ambitious businesswoman who struggles with the responsibilities of motherhood and has left her daughter in the care of Aisha.
- Rose Decker plays Rose, Aisha’s charge. She’s a sweet girl who creates a strong bond with Aisha, but her tendency to run off provides a big challenge for her nanny.
- Morgan Spector plays Adam, a world-traveling photographer and Rose’s father. He is a charming philanderer, and his relationship with Amy is clearly strained.
- Sinqua Walls plays Malik, the doorman in the building where Aisha works. Malik has a crush on Aisha and also has a young son.
- Leslie Uggams plays Kathleen, Malik’s grandmother, an Afrophile and a mystic shaman who determines that Aisha’s unsettling experiences are rooted in African mythology and dark magic.
A Short Synopsis of Nanny
Aisha has recently been given a great job opportunity, a nanny job for a wealthy young family in the Upper East Side of New York. She has a teaching background from her life in Dakar, but those credentials don’t allow her to get a job in America. However, she can convert her understanding and compatibility with children to this new job. The child, Rose, takes to her immediately. Rose is a remarkably stable child for being the daughter of two parents who are too career-focused to pay her proper attention.
Amy is an over-stressed professional who cares about what Rose eats but has no idea how to communicate with her daughter. Adam is the absentee father who pays some attention to Rose on rare occasions when he is home. This detachment from her parents allows Rose to bond quickly with Aisha, and the two of them play, share stories, and eat together. But it is a painful experience for Aisha as she longs for her son, Lamine, whom she left behind in Africa.
Aisha develops vivid nightmares involving drowning and suffocating. These nightmares become the waking variety, causing her to hallucinate during her daily routines. She finds solace in Malik, who is smitten with her, and she allows him into her life. Malik’s grandmother takes a shine to Aisha. Kathleen is a Marabout, a mystic shamanic practitioner.
Kathleen informs Aisha of the Gods that traveled the ocean from Africa during the slave trade. These two gods, Anansi, the trickster spider God, and Mami Wata, the water spirit (mermaid) who watched over slaves across the Atlantic and claimed those slaves who jumped off of slave ships and babies who were thrown overboard. Clearly, Aisha has been influenced by these demigods. This may be modern America, but the immigrant’s story has retained some of the struggles of life for modern African immigrants.
As Aisha struggles with her spiritual connections, her life as a nanny becomes more problematic. She is caught up in family politics and has not been properly compensated for her time. The closer Aisha gets to getting Lamine back, the more dramatic her visions become. The conclusion has several layers of bittersweetness built into it that mix in equal parts hope and sorrow.
EVALUATION OF NANNY
This is a sophisticated tale of race, motherhood, class struggle, immigration, and cultural identity. Horror and immigration tales fascinate me. In many ways, this reminds me of a similar story, His House (2022), which examined African immigrants in England. The aspirations, struggles, and risks involved in this xenophobic landscape are ripe for exploration of terror. For Nanny, this exploration is the dread of a mother who misses her boy and the frustration and futility of trying to get him back. Rose is a good kid, but she is a poor stand-in for Aisha’s real son. There is a veneer of guilt and sadness in Aisha even though she does a terrific job as Rose’s caretaker.
Anna Diop is a resonant star in the making. She is a magnetic presence who can channel emotions through her body’s movement in a scene. Diop has a grasp on how slight adjustments to the speed at which she does things matter. She also can really act just with her eyes. Her eyes light up, can turn into a rapier-like stare, and well up with lost confusion. Sinqua Walls charmed me. He won me over by winning Aisha over; she was a tough nut to crack, but I enjoyed watching him win her over. There are leading man qualities in Walls, even evident in this relatively small role. Also, any movie with Leslie Uggams in it is better for having her in it.
I quibble with the movie’s use of sound. Too often, an ominous thrum will rumble through a scene, only to offer up very little. For a movie that touts itself as a horror film, it needed to pay off the tense moments. The ending is properly devastating, but it proves to be more of a drama moment than a horror moment. Nanny is coated in darkness sauce, but it’s a thin coating. The horror is a flavoring element, but not the course itself. Fortunately, it also allows rays of hope to cut through the darkness on occasion.
Ninkyatu Jusu captured New York City beautifully. The set designs and cinematography were sumptuous, and even the grittier parts of the City just popped. The movie captured the elegance of City life, from a West African neighborhood birthday party to Mami Wata’s swimming pool appearance. They say, in art, create what you know. This feels like something deeply personal from Jusu.
CONCLUSION
If you are a fan of drama-heavy beautiful, dark folklore stories, you will appreciate Nanny. However, if you are a more conventional horror movie fan, it may be best not to consider this a horror film. I applaud Blumhouse for taking the time to watch this film. Jason Blum notoriously allows filmmakers free reign to make their movies the way they want to as long as they stay within a million dollars, which for this film seemed to be plenty. The movie looks fantastic and has really good acting performances.
Good comps in terms of style and pace, if not story, for Nanny include the aforementioned His House (2020), The Feast (2021), La Llorona (2019), The Babadook (2018), and most strongly, Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (2017). The MPAA gave Nanny an R Rating for violence, nudity (mild), and sexual situations (mild). This movie is suitable for older teenagers, but they are not the target audience for this film.
Review by Eric Li