The Nest

This edition of the Deauville American Film Festival has been an excellent vintage in terms of its official selection but also the many films screened in Premiere proposed. The absence of American world stars will thus have been partly compensated for by an excellent organization and especially films like The Nest of undeniable quality, whose three prizes (Grand Prize, the International Critics' Prize and the Revelation Prize) are well deserved. After a first film written and directed, Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011), Sean Durkin comes back with a second film with perfect mechanics in which a former broker, Rory (Jude Law) decides to leave the United States to settle in an old mansion with his family and try a new start bringing him a better future. Unfortunately things are not going to go as planned and the family balance will be severely affected.

Rory thinks indeed that she will make a fortune in her former boss's company by bringing a juicy dossier but unfortunately this transaction is collapsing and this hope of a lucrative departure is quickly fading away. The couple is fractured all the more as Roy is a good talker, a liar and rather mythomaniac. The money starts to run out and his disappointed wife is forced to work on a farm. She loves horses and horseback riding but her husband also lied to her about his American horse. Rory in this time of crisis is trying to reconnect with her mother who lives in a working-class neighborhood where he grew up. But this visit ends in failure because he had neglected her for too long.

If The Nest is so captivating, it is because it is based on an excellent script and a description of the other side of the American Dream. Between a man who dreams of greatness and buys himself a glitzy mansion to show off his hypothetical wealth, a mother abandoned by her husband and their children who are struggling to regain their balance, the film perfectly shows the differences in mentality between the English and the Americans. The great quality of Sean Durkin's screenplay is to give a real depth to the couple Rory and Allison played to perfection by Jude Law and Carrie Coon. We also find in the supporting roles Michael Culkin and Anne Reid. Certainly the way to highlight the turmoil of life, the psychological evolution of this couple who by changing world and trying to build a cozy nest will rather end up in danger zones. Rory by living above her usual lifestyle will end up losing her own identity.

The great psychological strength of this film is also to draw a successful parallel between the horse that the couple welcomes in their property and which starts little by little to show a certain uneasiness and Rory's behavior which becomes more and more narcissistic and bellicose. The loss of reference of this family is felt with this horse that runs inexorably towards its death. Far from clichés advocating success at all costs, this film benefits not only from a true vision of a writer-director but also testifies to the great care taken in the photography signed by Mátyás Erdély (Son of Paul). Undoubtedly The Nest stands out as a film to be seen in the cinema and confirms once again the undeniable talent of Jude Law, who is as comfortable in blockbusters as he is in independent films that let his immense talent as an actor shine through.

The Nest
A film written and directed by Sean Durkin
Produced by Ed Guiney, Rose Garnett, Derrin Schlesinger, Sean Durkin, Christina Piovesan, Amy Jackson
With Jude Law, Carrie Coon, Charlie Shotwell, Oona Roche, Adeel Akhtar
Music by Richard Reed Parry [
Director of Photography: Mátyás Erdély
Editing: Matthew Hannam
Production: BBC Films, Element Pictures, FilmNation Entertainment, Telefilm Canada, Substitute Films
Distribution: IFC Films (USA), SND (France)
Release date : : January 26, 2020 (Sundance), September 18, 2020 (USA)
Duration: 107 minutes

Seen on September 10, 2020 at the Centre International de Deauville, in VO

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