Film FestivalMovie Review

Film Review: NANNY: Magical Realist Horror with More Going On Underneath the Surface [Sundance 2022]

Anna Diop Nanny 01

Nanny Review

Nanny (2022) Film Review from the 45th Annual Sundance Film Festival, a movie written and directed by Nikyatu Jusu, starring Anna Diop, Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Spector, Sinqua Walls, Leslie Uggams, Princess Adenike, Mitzie Pratt, Rich Graff, Olamide Candide-Johnson, Keturah Hamilton, Rose Decker, Michael Cuomo, Billy Griffith, Meghan Noone, Regina Ohashi, Zephani Idoko, and Stephanie Jae Park.

Although they may manifest themselves differently from their original form, the echoes of colonialism still reverberate down through the centuries. They disguise themselves under the mask of modern capitalism and the illusion of choice, but in reality they are still causing families to be separated and dealing hardships toward African immigrants through numerous forms of exploitation. The logical accrual from this psychic destruction would be rage, but even that can be improperly harnessed. As a concerned Kathleen (Leslie Uggams) asks a distraught Aisha (Anna Diop) late in Nanny – Nikyatu Jusu’s feature directorial debut that just took the Grand Jury Prize in this year’s U.S. Dramatic Competition at Sundance – is one’s rage their strength or their kryptonite? And regardless of which one it is, what does that answer entail?

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Aisha, a young mother and a former Senegalese schoolteacher, is a newly undocumented immigrant looking for work in New York City. She left her son Lamine (Jahleel Kamara) back in Senegal as she strives toward financial independence abroad, thinking she finally found it in her new nannying position for an affluential Upper West Side couple (Michelle Monaghan and Morgan Spector) and their daughter, Rose (Rose Decker). Rose loves Aisha and the two get along for the most part, but the longer Aisha works for her parents Amy and Adam the more they become neglectful and unpredictable. This leaves her caring for a child that’s not her own while her patience (and wallet) runs thin, filling her with guilt and self-doubt about her motherly role towards her own son. Despite the support from her loving boyfriend Malik (Sinqua Walls) and his soothsaying mom Kathleen, Aisha starts to lose her grip on reality as she becomes convinced that some evil being is luring her away from Lamine and the success to which she’s strived for so long.

It’s easy to draw cinematic connections right off the bat – particularly with Ousmane Sembène’s seminal work Black Girl, another story in which a Senegalese woman (played by Mbissine Thérèrse Diop) journeys to the West and is hired as a maid to an unstable and abusive white couple. But whereas Sembène employs his straightforward realist approach Jusu works a more magical realist one, utilizing African folk tales to complement Aisha’s struggles. In that way, Nanny is another in a long line of the folk horror tradition to use metaphor and myth to give perspective on a clash of cultures – in this case, particularly with processing the centuries-long trauma that Black women have been dealt with through maintaining livelihoods after violent relocations. A closer comparison, then, would be to both clipping.’s EP “The Deep” and Rivers Solomon’s subsequent novella adaptation.

Similar to Mariama Diallo’s Master (a co-competitor with Jusu’s film in the U.S. Dramatic Competition), another part of Nanny’s draw is its use of existential horror and prolonged suspenseful vibes to create a terrifying atmosphere without having to rely on singular, physically-tangible villains. The monsters are more like auras that manifest themselves in various people and their actions, constantly shifting from one form to the next and making them difficult to pin down, much less defeat (insert something about social constructs and institutionalized racism here). Sometimes these fears are external, like of Aisha losing her job and safety due to Amy’s increasing instability or Adam’s general shiftiness. Other times they’re internal, wherein Aisha drowns herself in the worry of not providing enough for Lamine and failing to live up to her own motherly expectations.

Jusu’s coalescence of all these strands into a convoluted knot feels authentic to a lived human experience: messy and full of contradictions … just like the story of Anansi the spider that Aisha reads to Rose, wherein she explains Anansi’s dual identity of being both a “trickster” as well as a survivor. As such, Nanny sticks out in its crowded sea of psychological horror as it thrashes amidst a slew of impending doom that, despite not always being pointed, is always palpable.

There are some points where it flounders too much, particularly during a climactic reveal that doesn’t necessarily feel unbelievable but rather characteristically unlikely (and narratively odd). Moments like that shake you out of the trance that Jusu otherwise establishes so well, but she’s quick to reel you back under before you can grab too much air. Diop is great as Aisha, portraying her with such resilient reserve that her moments of psychological drop-out play against her established norm with striking contrast. Although, Walls as Malik may be the film’s surprise/wild card – he offers her playful recess from, and an empathetic anchor for, her increasingly chaotic work life with a wonderfully understated performance.

Nanny is a film that does not shy away from its collective origins, but it repurposes them into a singular vision that feels both universal and unique. It’s a figurative and literal example of there being more going on underneath the surface.

Rating: 7/10

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Jacob Mouradian

A Midwest transplant in the Big Apple, Jacob can never stop talking about movies (it’s a curse, really). Although a video editor and sound mixer by trade, he’s always watching and writing about movies in his spare time. However, when not obsessing over Ken Russell films or delving into some niche corner of avant-garde cinema, he loves going on bike rides, drawing in his sketchbook, exploring all that New York City has to offer, and enjoying a nice cup of coffee.
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