Directors Ariel Schulman & Henry Joost's second film of 2016 is the techno teen-thriller Nerve, based upon Jeanne Ryan's novel of the same name.
Emma Roberts plays a shy high-schooler who decides to outdo her more outgoing friend and joins an online game social media game of truth or dare that gets progressively more dangerous the better she gets at it.
With it's warning of social media pressure and fear of technology, it pretty much plays out like a rich teeny-bopper version of a Black Mirror episode only with a happy Hollywood ending with no lasting consequences. These kids are spoiled and pretty flat, so the stakes feel low and you never really feel the potential danger it could have dived into. Fortunately the pacing is brisk enough to never really give you time to figure out all the pointless plot-points it introduces for whatever reason. An admirable effort but in the end it isn't the sharp-witted film it could have been.
Emma Roberts plays a shy high-schooler who decides to outdo her more outgoing friend and joins an online game social media game of truth or dare that gets progressively more dangerous the better she gets at it.
With it's warning of social media pressure and fear of technology, it pretty much plays out like a rich teeny-bopper version of a Black Mirror episode only with a happy Hollywood ending with no lasting consequences. These kids are spoiled and pretty flat, so the stakes feel low and you never really feel the potential danger it could have dived into. Fortunately the pacing is brisk enough to never really give you time to figure out all the pointless plot-points it introduces for whatever reason. An admirable effort but in the end it isn't the sharp-witted film it could have been.
2½ lighthouses out of 5
