Mark Reviews Movies: NOCEBO

Nocebo, RLJE Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 3, 2022

Something terrible has happened at the start of Nocebo, a creepy horror film that gradually reveals an undercurrent of righteous anger. This event changes Christine (Eva Green), a well-to-do fashion designer who becomes a shell of herself personally and professionally after receiving the news over the phone.

That change arrives in the form of a mangy dog and one of the many ticks it has on its body. One of those insects burrows beneath the skin on back of her neck, and it's either a metaphor for guilt or the real deal. Then again, why can't it be both?

There are bigger questions to answer and mysteries to solve in screenwriter Garret Shanley and director Lorcan Finnegan's film, which gives equal narrative weight to the psychological break being experienced by Christine and the unclear past of Diana (Chai Fonacier), a woman from the Philippines whom Christine hired to help around the house. That's what Diana says, at least, but Christine can't remember hiring the woman.

She has trouble remembering a lot of things in the months following the uncertain tragedy, the otherworldly encounter, the parasitic infection, or all of those things, which have left Christine weakened and out of sorts. She's on a heavy regimen of prescription medications, just to keep her functioning, and even all this time later, the welt from where the tick entered her body is still present and irritated.

The story follows Christine in the present, as she juggles her struggles with a now-shaky marriage to Felix (Mark Strong), trying to keep the couple's daughter Bobs (Billie Gadsdon) on her schedule, and arranging a professional comeback of sorts. It also keeps a close eye on Diana, who seems eager and happy to help her new boss at first, but at night, the hired help speaks to shadows and appears to possess some other supernatural insights and powers.

Finnegan plays with perspective in an intriguingly tricky way here. From the start, the story seems to belong to Christine. If that's the case, though, how and why are we given this kind of access to Diana's private moments? Later, that perspective expands, and we're witnessing her memories of a life lived at home in the Philippines, hinting at powers of magical healing, and filled with domestic bliss, financial worries, and connections that, while somewhat predictable, re-adjust our understanding of who Christine is and why all of this is happening in the first place.

There's a strong sense of mood and uncertainty here, which initially suggests we should feel unsettled in sympathy or empathy with Christine. As the truth behind Nocebo becomes clearer, though, that anxious feeling shifts focus and becomes imbued with a sense of melancholy doom. By the end, we might start to question why our attachment to Christine and our suspicions of Diana, despite not knowing a thing of real significance about either woman, are like a reflexive starting point for our perspective on this tale.

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