Nan­ny

Domes­tic work­ers live at the fringes of oth­er people’s real­i­ties, devot­ing their bod­ies and souls to rather thank­less jobs. Often they are from devel­op­ing nations, leav­ing their far­away homes just to make a liv­ing, and it is typ­i­cal that they have chil­dren of their own too, whom they rarely see as they take care of their employer’s kids. In Nan­ny, first time fea­ture film­mak­er Niky­atu Jusu takes the spot­light and shines it on this unex­plored sect of soci­ety, cre­at­ing a beau­ti­ful yet chill­ing tale sur­round­ing iden­ti­ty, love, and moth­er­hood pep­pered along with ter­ror, ten­sion, and African mythology.

Aisha (Anna Diop) is an undoc­u­ment­ed Sene­galese immi­grant who starts a new job as the nan­ny for an afflu­ent Man­hat­tan fam­i­ly in hopes of sav­ing up enough mon­ey to bring her own young son over to the Unit­ed States. She then begins to expe­ri­ence super­nat­ur­al dis­tur­bances that force her to deal with her guilt over leav­ing her son behind in pur­suit of a bet­ter life for them. 

Jusu’s choice of uti­liz­ing the super­nat­ur­al through African mythol­o­gy brings a new touch to a genre rife with arbi­trary ghosts and ghoul­ish crea­tures. There are even moments of hes­i­tan­cy in their pres­ence — is Aisha in dan­ger, or is she sim­ply being guid­ed? The under­stat­ed beau­ty blan­ket­ing the film is anoth­er aspect that sets it apart, this artistry brought in by cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Rina Yang, whose bal­ance of vivid pri­ma­ry colours and soft tones makes it not only an emo­tion­al expe­ri­ence but a visu­al­ly stun­ning one too.

Diop astounds as Aisha, her por­tray­al of a per­son who must con­stant­ly live at an inter­nal cross­roads sub­tle yet con­stant­ly var­ied — she is not only just ​“the help” but a woman too. Diop’s per­for­mance brings a won­der­ful depth to the char­ac­ter and car­ries the weight of the film near­ly effort­less­ly. Michelle Monaghan’s role as her employ­er Amy may be under­stand­ably minor, but she also pro­vides a con­trast essen­tial for the narrative.

While Nan­ny does make full use of its atmos­phere and ten­sion, Jusu tends to play loose­ly with the pace, cre­at­ing nar­ra­tive lulls here and there that leave a bit too much breath­ing space. Addi­tion­al­ly, although the film has been labelled a ​“hor­ror”, expec­ta­tions for phys­i­cal frights should be brought down low. Nan­ny may con­tain hor­ror ele­ments, but these are far from being the fron­trun­ner in this sto­ry. The super­nat­ur­al per­me­ates through­out the nar­ra­tive but takes a back­seat — result­ing in a lack of jump-scares and call­ing for per­haps some­thing even more ter­ri­fy­ing: self-reflec­tion.

The film’s focus on the life of a domes­tic work­er is an emo­tion­al­ly fraught expe­ri­ence — mate­ri­al­iz­ing per­haps just a frac­tion of what it would be like in their shoes. With its sprin­kling of fear and unique imagery, it frames the per­son­al con­flict of Aisha in pic­turesque moments that pro­voke gasps and fur­ther thought. Nan­ny is strong show­ing of Jusu’s promise and prowess as a direc­tor, mak­ing her future endeav­ours (notably her new­ly announced Night of the Liv­ing Dead sequel) some­thing to look out for.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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