Nanny is all over the place and just does not work. There is a decent concept in there somewhere, but the delivery is confusing and just…not good.
Nanny has all the makings of something that is right up my alley but unfortunately it just isn’t done well. Sure, it is visually stunning for the most part, but the story is confusing and all over the place. By the time the big reveal comes at the end, most viewers will have already completely checked out.
Right from the start this movie is slow and uninteresting. Aisha (Anna Diop), an undocumented immigrant from Senegal, takes a job as a nanny to a rich couple. She instantly connects with their young daughter Rose, which is good, because she spends far more time with her than the parents do. There are glimpses of both the mother and the father touching Aisha, or being suggestive towards her, but overall this part of the story is bizarre and completely unnecessary.
Throughout the course of the movie weird things start to happen. Aisha begins to have all sorts of strange happenings that involve water, spiders, and snakes. These are reoccurring themes in bad dreams or hallucinations, and they happen without explanation. As viewers try to figure it all out, things just go off the deep end, and nothing makes sense.
Aisha is constantly talking about bringing her son, who is currently staying with her cousin, to the United States, and is very concerned with getting paid on time so she can fly him there to live. She doesn’t talk to him very often, which I guess can be explained by her long hours as a nanny? But as a mother myself I promise you I would make sure to talk to my child at least every other day or so.
There are several things introduced that never amount to anything. For example, both Aisha and Rose’s father make a big deal about mold growing on the ceiling in Aisha’s room, but then nothing comes of it. In an effort to avoid spoilers, I can’t dive into one of the major plot points that irked me, but I will say there was no reason to hide something from someone, and it feels completely insane that anyone would ever do that — and then blame it on them when they were not even there.
I adore Anna Diop so it really hurts me to say that this movie just did not work for me. It felt like all the makings of an interesting story are there, it just wasn’t executed well. So many of the hallucination dreams, or whatever they are, feel completely out of place. At one point a weird mermaid shows up and that is about the moment I was over it.
Nanny tries to lay the groundwork for a surprise twist ending, but instead it makes it almost completely obvious from the start, with only the circumstances surrounding it hard to predict. The final few moments are spent flashing forward in time very quickly to explain what happens to Aisha — another unnecessary addition to the film.
Overall Nanny is just a complete mess that doesn’t work on almost any level. The only saving grace here is that the visuals are gorgeous at times, but that isn’t enough to make this film even remotely worth watching. Most viewers will be left wondering what the heck they just watched, and why they just wasted ninety minutes of their life.
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Rating: 1 out of 5
About Nanny
Aisha, an undocumented Senegalese immigrant, lands a job as a nanny of a wealthy Manhattan couple. While she easily wins the affection of their young daughter Rose, she becomes a pawn in the couple’s facade of a marriage. The mother is as controlling as the dad is disillusioned and woke.
Haunted by the absence of the young son she left behind in Senegal, Aisha hopes her new job will afford her the chance to bring him to the U.S. and share in the life she is piecing together. But as his arrival approaches, a supernatural presence begins to invade both her dreams and her reality.
Nanny played at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.
Tessa Smith is a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer-approved Film and TV Critic. On Camera personality and TV / Film Critic with 10+ years of experience in video editing, writing, editing, moderating, and hosting.