Life as an undocumented immigrant in the United States provides enough horror without being subject to actual evil spirits. Writer-director Nikyatu Jusu's debut feature Nanny piles on the misfortune for its Senegalese protagonist, turning what could be an affecting naturalistic drama about class and race into a wispy, dissatisfying piece of supernatural horror. There are still some sharp insights and strong performances, but Nanny — which won the Grand Jury Prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival — ends up less than the sum of its parts.
Anna Diop stars as Aisha, who's come from Senegal to New York City to provide a better life for her young son Lamine. He's still living back in Senegal, while she stays with an aunt and puts together the money needed to pay for his travel to the U.S. To that end, she's landed a job as a nanny for a wealthy Manhattan couple, taking care of their young daughter, Rose (Rose Decker). Rose takes to Aisha immediately, but her parents Amy (Michelle Monaghan) and Adam (Morgan Spector) have more difficulty, and Jusu captures their mixture of friendliness and judgment as they alternately embrace and criticize Aisha.
Dealing with microaggressions and unwanted advances is the price that Aisha pays for a stable job that pays consistently in cash, although the payments become less reliable as time goes on. Amy and Adam are clearly having marital and financial problems, but Jusu keeps those offscreen except when they directly impact Aisha, aligning the audience with Aisha's perspective. Jusu is perceptive about the small details that make life difficult for Aisha, but she also allows for moments of happiness, as Aisha starts a romance with doorman Malik (Sinqua Walls) and forms a bond with Malik's grandmother Kathleen (Leslie Uggams).
That connection isn't just about Kathleen's grandmotherly warmth, though. Kathleen is also a stock horror-movie psychic who gives Aisha cryptic warnings about various spiritual dangers. From the beginning, Nanny builds a sense of dread via ominous music and lingering shots of Aisha staring into the distance, possibly sensing an evil presence. Is the menace coming from the toxic environment where she works? Is it coming from back home in Senegal, where Lamine waits for her to summon him? Or is it just a sort of free-floating dread that's a byproduct of such a precarious existence?
Nanny provides only vague answers, instead relying on a melodramatic final reveal that overshadows all of Aisha's everyday difficulties. Jusu creates some striking images, including repeated visions of Aisha underwater, and she introduces elements of Senegalese mythology that are new to American horror movies. Like Mariama Diallo's similar Master, Nanny hesitates to commit fully to its horrors, lessening their impact and making them a distraction from the characters' emotional reality. Recent movies like Kindred and Good Madam have found a more effective balance, integrating genre elements into stories about ingrained racism and class inequality, but Nanny's most incisive social commentary essentially has nothing to do with the supernatural.
Monaghan and Spector make the entitled, passive-aggressive upper-class couple scarier than any malevolent spirit, and Diop conveys Aisha's desperation as she's trapped in the middle of their interpersonal conflict. The ostensibly liberal couple — Adam is a photojournalist who documents oppression and uprisings — see Aisha as little more than a tool for their child care and other needs, passing the blame back and forth when she isn't paid on time or is asked to put in extra hours at the last minute. That kind of casual mistreatment, more than dangerous specters from beyond, is what makes Aisha's life terrifying. ♦
Nanny
