Children fashion designer Christine (Eva Green) fights complicated mental health issues after a deadly accident she was responsible for, but never got convicted of, because it happened somewhere else – in a sweatshop in the Philippines. This is of course a wild guess during the first 30 minutes of the film's runtime, because Christine has no recollection of that particular event, and we build the bigger puzzle along the road that finally does answer all questions except the one about the legal ramifications. She is just presented as someone suffering from a number of symptoms beginning with a (selective) memory loss, quivering and hallucinations to something that makes her wear a CPAP mask at night. With her career on hold, and not much she can analyse without the material to talk about, Christine is a wreck and there is no way denying it. Between different manifestations of the malaise, she is seizing for the small oportunities to get her life back: presenting her designs to the fashion labels, and taking her daughter Roberta (Billie Gadsdon) to school.
Nocebo is currently playing in UK cinemas nationwide, courtesy of Vertigo Releasing
All of the drama doesn't explain how a stranger by the name of Diana (Chai Fonacier) who appears on her doorstep out of the blue gets her foot inside of the house to ‘help'. Christine allegedly called for Diana, and we don't believe it for a second. What's worse, the family doesn't seem to buy it either, but the woman is still on board. It's such an easy way in, that it takes time to get into the story of Finnegan's alleged horror drama “Nocebo”.
Speaking of which, the film is sold as a horror, and yet there are not more than few half-heartedly done scenes supposed to frighten the viewer. It's like riding on a wee train through the house of horror in a local amusement park, not only knowing that a spider or a skeleton will ineviteably pop in front of your face, but guessing exactly when and not caring at all. There is no real scare in “Nocebo” despite of some decent attempts at introducing a fright effect. Finnegan was so busy trying to incorporate his critique of the fashion industry and the human obsession with consuming it, that he lost his deeper connection to genre. Bring back the infested, zombie-like dog to the plot and the tick that infected Christine, and go further from there!
The loose connection between drama and horror is probably a much smaller problem in case of “Nocebo” than the actual predictability of the plot from the very beginning of the movie. This can't be blamed on Tony Cranstoun's editing that saved what could be saved. We have a case of too many convoluted ideas waiting to be properly seasoned and cooked: the Philippino shaman that somehow materializes herself in England from a place she worked for 20 pence an hour, a huge accident that claimed lives and left us with only 5 minutes of it, crime & punishment going second-hand, and speeded-up story about the shaman's introduction to that world. The plot is as safe as a sexual intercourse involving a vasectomy, birth control pill and a condom.
Some of the ‘voodoo' moments will make this watch memorable, even if they are not developed with much detail. The scriptwriter Garret Shanley who did a great job with Finnegan's “Vivarium” (2019), an oddball sci-fi story that premiered to the critical acclaim in Cannes International Critics' Week, gets forlorn in his vision of a family home seized by a stranger who seeks revenge. There is beauty in this film that doesn't know where it wants to go, but the brilliantly selected cast will keep you from giving up on it.
