Butler's Cinema Scene

Andrea Riseborough

“NANCY” My rating: B

87 minutes | No MPAA rating

Brit actress Andrea Riseborough is a human chameleon.

She played Michael Keaton’s actress girlfriend in “Birdman,” Billy Jean King’s hairdresser and lesbian lover in “Battle of the Sexes,” and Joseph Stalin’s daughter Svetlana in “Death of Stalin.” In each of these supporting roles she was hard to recognize as the same actress.

Now Riseborough gets a leading role and, not unexpectedly,  nails it.

In the title role of  Christina Choe’s “Nancy” she delivers a performance that is simultaneously heartbreaking and scary.

Nancy is a pale, mop-headed weirdo who lives with her demanding invalid mother (Ann Dowd). More accurately, she lives on the Internet, always peering into her cel phone or computer screen.

A social misfit, Nancy only really feels like a person when she assumes a false  identity and goes trolling for new friends/victims.  One such individual is Jeb (John Leguizamo), whom she met on a site for parents mourning dead children.  They arrange a face-to-face and Nancy (he knows her as Rebecca) shows up heavily padded to give the impression that she’s pregnant. Creepy.

She works as a temp, showing the other employees at a dental clinic faked photographs of herself touring North Korea.

When Mom dies Nancy is left to her own devices.  She catches a TV news report about a couple whose little girl Brooke vanished 30 years ago.  Forensic cops have used age progression software to create a “photo” of what the missing child would look like today…and Nancy is floored: “It’s like looking into a mirror.”

Steve Buscemi, J. Smith-Cameron

The bulk of “Nancy” takes place in the home of Brooke’s parents Leo and Ellen (Steve Buscemi, J. Smith-Cameron) who, contacted by Nancy, invite her to visit them.

Ellen desperately wants this to be her long-lost daughter.  Leo, a psychologist, is more cautious.  He arranges for a DNA test. Nancy can stay with them for a few days while they await the results.

Here’s where Choe’s screenplay gets really gnarly.  We already know that Nancy is pathologically manipulative. Yet this time around she really thinks she might be the long-lost Brooke. She appears to be absolutely forthright and honest with the anxious couple.

There’s even some tangential evidence…like the fact that her “mother” was never able to produce Nancy’s birth certificate. Maybe “Mom” snatched her.

Virtually overnight a bond develops between Nancy and Ellen.  Both desperately want what the other offers — a loving mother and a restored daughter.

Even the dubious Leo starts to buy into the story;  you can tell when he substitutes  “you” for “Brooke” when talking about his missing child.

“Nancy” isn’t a thriller, exactly — to be a thriller implies physical threat — but it’s a compelling human mystery, with the three principal performers developing a heartbreaking story of love and loss.

| Robert W. Butler