The Nest (2020)

(On Cable TV, April 2021) One of my weaknesses as a movie reviewer is my over-eagerness to expect genre elements when there’s even a remote possibility that there will be. My disappointment when something turns out to be depressingly mundane probably won’t be shared by other reviewers perfectly at ease in down-to-earth drama. To be fair, if The Nest can lead viewers to expect a fantastic finale, it’s because much of the film is built along foreboding lines, with a family moving into a strange house and the father being a bit too invested in his delusions to be completely sane. Everyone in the family looks glum, and at times explicitly share their concerns about their new house. With a title like The Nest, wouldn’t you too expect some kind of horror-film third act? But no — The Nest is about broken birds gathering together, and specifically a protagonist making bad decisions for which his family keeps paying. It’s a good thing that he’s played by a charismatic performer such as Jude Law, because otherwise the film would be far less interesting than it already isn’t. Filmed in surprisingly bad fashion (including office scenes washed-out by exterior light — can someone get fill-in lighting in there?), it’s bland and unappealing and, more fatally, not interesting at all. The Nest can’t keep up with its own subplots, eventually forgetting almost everything to focus on the father’s financial woes. Nor does it end with any kind of finale beyond the characters sadly eating at the dinner table, their problems revealed but still intact. I’m clearly not meant to appreciate such shades-of-beige drama — I wanted zombies to eat them, vampires to suck them dry (reinforcing the theme) or ghosts to drive them crazy. Anything would have been better than this pointless mess.