‘Nanny’ Makes For a Haunting, Bewitching Fable [Sundance 2022]

Read Chad Collins’ review out of Sundance 2022.

Aisha (Anna Diop) refuses to be governed by the divine in Nikyatu Jusu’s stunning debut as both a writer and director. Fiercely independent, often to her detriment, Aisha endeavors to survive an insidious incarnation of New York City. It’s a place where progressive platitudes and an ostensible sensibility shift have masked rather than eliminated the monster beneath. Nanny draws from both West African folklore and the theatrics of prestige TV. This results in a curious hodgepodge of beguiling hallucinatory horrors and tepid, all-too-familiar narrative arcs.

As a Senegalese immigrant, Aisha’s only intention is to earn enough money to bring her son, Lamine (Jahleel Kamara) over to New York with her. So, she accepts a job as a Nanny for Michelle Monaghan and Rebecca Hall’s husband (Morgan Spector). They play Adam and Amy, parents to Rose (Rose Decker), and their characters engage as little as expected. Outward in motive, there’s no depth to either. Had Jusu reduced their role to pure archetype– well-meaning yuppies whose liberal livelihoods are no less predicated on the exploitation of immigrant workers, Nanny would work better when either appeared on-screen. Yet, they too frequently interfere in what should be Aisha’s story. They only propel her story forward with familiar beats of microaggressions, affairs, and the alleged stress of having it all.

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Conversely, Jusu wisely crafts Aisha in the periphery. When the locus of Nanny’s narrative is Aisha, it shines. Diop is, quite simply, sensational. Exquisitely textured, Diop’s characterization of Aisha never becomes too much of one thing. Her story is told in incidental beats of dialogue, the faint crack of a smile or glint of exhaustion in her eyes as Aisha walks back to her room. Frequent Facetime calls home to her son unfurls a maternal tapestry. Aisha is a loving, motivated mother, and Jusu cultivates this probing point-of-view with nuance and suggestion.

Similarly, and though not exactly scares, the early goings of Nanny conceive of its horror elements in much the same way. The flash of a visage or spider’s leg on the wall, a flooded bedroom, and lurking figures in the water combine in a thick assemblage of moody, gorgeously photographed genre beats. Magical realism meets unfamiliar folklore here. It’s that identity that, well, gives Nanny its identity, at least for a while. The otherness of an uninviting landscape unnerves, as Aisha defiantly searches for a way to fit in. She’s clinging hopelessly to an American ideal that doesn’t, and never did, exist.

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Nanny is elevated, a heavenly gauze overlaying every scene. This is cinematographer Rina Yang’s way of signaling to the audience that, yes, everything seems too good to be true. Nanny soon becomes overcast, however, as the tempest of folkloric elements takes over. The dichotomy between a woman working away from her child and a woman working to be with hers is stretched to its limits, the same narrative beats appearing time and time again. It’s only accelerated as Aisha’s distinction between what’s real and not deteriorates. The almost ethereal settings become nightmarish landscapes of hidden desires and ancient lore. But it falls flat when forced to fit into the confines of Adam and Amy’s apartment.

Nikyatu Jusu imbues Nanny with enough identity of its own, however, to work. While the conventionally ambiguous genre ending solidifies the need for Jusu to break the mold a bit more radically the next go-round, Nanny still inspires. With unconventional horror beats, a standout lead performance, and moments of profound insights, the kind too often left unexplored, Nanny is a knockout. Familiar beats and some tepidly conceived supporting players constrain its true potential. But as a debut feature, Nanny is destined to enchant.

Summary

Nanny is a haunting foray into West African folklore anchored by a sensational Anna Diop.

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