There are films that embrace the age we live in and then there are films that decide Pokémon Go is so last week. Nerve, in a 96 minute attempt to describe the habits of Generation Z, would be among the latter. Apparently, kids today really enjoy filming themselves.
I imagine one of the hardest things to do in scriptwriting is figuring out how to get your characters to the compromising situation you want them to play out. Nerve happened upon a great way to finesse the unrealistic — pay them. That’s right, give them money; we’ll just see who still has conscience, humility or health when there’s some Benjamins being dangled. Nerve is an on-line pay-per-view interactive dare game: people sign as “Watchers” (those who pay) and “Players” (those who receive). Players are prompted to do things by the watchers for money. The more watchers a player has, the bigger the paycheck, essentially, and also the riskier the dare. Players are allowed no choices in their 24-hour stint as guinea pigs – it is unclear whether the money they garner for individual dares is forfeit for a “fail” or “bail” somewhere down the line. The finances don’t work either way, but they really, really, really don’t work if players get all the money and then quit once something becomes “too hard.” The dares seem to start at level embarrassing, work their way past illegal and eventually into life-threatening.
That’s a lot of exposition for one lousy review.
Venus (Emma Roberts) or “Vee” is a Staten Island high school photographer. Yes, I suppose Emma Roberts can still play high school. It works about as well as one accepting that kids with actual real life cameras still exist as do NYC schools that care about football. Vee takes to the wallflower routine pretty well. She’s consistently overshadowed by her frenemy Sydney (Emily Meade), who shows her stripes early by going pantiless at a cheerleading pep rally. [Calm down, yes she’s a cheerleader, but the film is PG-13] This is a Nerve dare, of course. IRL, most of
the dares would involve nudity of some kind, I imagine, but in this film that was it.
Frustrated by Sydney forcing the issue with Vee’s wouldn’t-be boytoy, Vee decides it’s time to stop watching and start doing and clicks “PLAYER” on the Nerve screen. The transition segment shows Nerve, whatever Nerve is, collecting all sorts of information on Venus and her various orbital attributes and satellites. This is the signal to grit teeth and cringe a little. Venus may as well wear a sign saying, “please identity thieve me; I’m that stupid.”
I was kind of hoping Venus would end up kissing Mars Blackmon on her first dare – wouldn’t that be cute? Instead, her blind date is Ian (Dave Franco), still reeling from all the hair he lost in between Now You See Me movies. They do make a cute couple. And they do get pushed into a number of corners.
Does Nerve hold back? A tad. Hard to say – I mean if you can imagine it, then you can get somebody to do it, right? And if there’s money, I mean real money (like $10,000 for an especially dangerous stunt) and there’s no gameplay supervision, you can suggest literally anything. Not sure I can come up with anything more daring than swimming the East River. I probably would fabricate more of a scavenger hunt – collect dirt from the infield at Yankee Stadium, toejam from the Satute of Liberty, bird poop from at least the third floor exterior of the Empire State Building. None of these is actually any dare-ier than what Venus and Ian are asked to do, for which one has to credit the imagination of the screenwriter.
Nerve tries very hard to warn about the dangers of apersonal interaction and the evils of the mob mentality. It deserves kudos for the attempt, and yet what you’re gonna take from this is Emma Roberts gets $$ to try on an expensive dress and then $$$ to try it off and leave. I felt like the well-intentioned lecturing was sloppy, and, let’s face it, do young folks need a paycheck excuse? Watch “Tosh.0” for 15 seconds and you get the
idea that some people will do anything for nothing. Nerve obviously works better when the subject has to be goaded.
I’m being a ted generous to this film because I remained curious as to where Vee and Ian would go with their evening, and the idea, although far-fetched, seemed far more in tune for modern Manhattan shenanigans (I played bass for Modern Manhattan Shenanigans in the 80s) than, say, The Night Before. But don’t imagine this is great art or a wonderful insight into the generation it’s trying to describe. I dare Nerve 2 to write a more realistic, yet just as entiertaining, script.
An exposé on todays’ youth
Describing teens from here to Duluth
Money for dares
Problem: who cares
Do none of you ever seek truth?
Rated PG-13, 96 Minutes
D: Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman
W: Jeanne Ryan
Genre: Critiquing the youtube generation
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: The exact people it’s criticizing
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: “Get off my lawn!”
