Nanny
Nikyatu Jusu (director and writer), Rina Yang (cinematography), Robert Mead (editor)
Anna Diop, Michelle Monaghan, and Sinqua Walls (cast)
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| Image credit: Courtesy of TIFF |
I went to watch Nanny at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival with little knowledge about what the film was about (arguably the best way to watch a film). The premise of the debut feature film by Sierra Leonean-American filmmaker Nikyatu Jusu intrigued me as it dealt with an immigrant worker, Aisha (Anna Diop), who is haunted by her separation from her son.
We often read about migrant workers, be they the labourers in the Middle East, living under shocking conditions, or farmers in the US, who are overworked and underpaid. There’s less of a conversation about domestic workers, especially those who come from aboard and work in America. Nanny brings this under told story to the fore through protagonist Aisha, who is barely making rent for her one-room living space, before she finally gets a job caring for an affluent, white couple’s daughter.
Aisha is adept at her job, but her employers, Amy (Michelle Monaghan) and Adam (Morgan Spector), are negligent and disrespectful of her time. It soon becomes obvious that Aisha has to live by their whims and fancies—Amy comes home late but refuses to pay overtime, and despite Aisha insisting on getting what she’s owed, neither husband nor wife takes the hint.
So why does Aisha need the money? She’s originally from Senegal and emigrated to the US to make a better life for herself and her young son Lamine. Lamine is her entire world, and Aisha is desperate to bring him to her new home. But she needs the money for the flight. The stakes are high, but Amy and Adam can’t see beyond their own marital issues to do the very basics for their employee.
And this is what makes Nanny such a powerful film. Any other film would pontificate about racism, systemic and otherwise, but Nanny weaves in the discrimination that Aisha, and people in her situation, face on a regular basis. Aisha doesn’t have time to worry about the system; she’s desperate. She takes a job she’s overqualified for because it’s the only opportunity available to her. She powers through her employers’ poor behaviour because she has no other recourse.
And you can’t help but feel for Aisha—her yearning for her son is apparent in Diop’s subtle performance. Diop plays such a firecracker on DC’s Titans, but she is incredibly understated in Nanny. Instead of histrionics, she draws in the audience with nuanced expressions and intentional dialogue delivery. The way her face lights up when she talks about Lamine, or when Malik (played by Sinqua Walls who is the brightest spark in this film) flirts with her versus the restraint she shows when confronting her employers demonstrate Diop’s extraordinary talents.
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| Image credit: Courtesy of TIFF |
Where the film goes awry is its insistence on being a horror film. Writer/director Jusu certainly delights in the horror elements, and the cinematography by Rina Yang is gorgeous and eerie and atmospheric. But every time a horror scene turned up, I felt it was pointless and detracted from the real horrors of Aisha’s broken American dream. While horror and social commentary can work well together (Get Out exists for a reason), not every story needs that treatment.
I think the trouble with including these horror moments was two-fold—diegetically, they made almost no sense and had little in relation to the overarching story. And Aisha being the victim of it was uncalled for. This is a woman who’s had so many bad hands dealt to her; her one bright spark is her son. Why does she have to deal with nightmares and hallucinations and near-death experiences as well? It’s too much for one person to endure.
The one upside to adding the horror angle was learning about the mythos from different cultures in African countries, but again, those should have been woven into the story organically, instead of being told to the audience.
What will undoubtedly have viewers talking about is the ending of Nanny. I got into a riveting conversation with a fellow critic who viewed the ending in a completely different light than I did. I felt the denouement wrapped things up too quickly and neatly instead of addressing the obvious trauma that the character had undergone. What the viewer is left with is a confused message about the meaning of sacrifice and the quest for the American Dream. My neighbouring critic thought the complete opposite.
Despite its flaws, I would highly recommend watching Nanny for the powerful social commentary at the core of the story. Beneath the veneer of an eerie horror lies a film that’s deeply relevant today.
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