“Nights are really special, you’ll see,” Mona (Eleonore Hendricks) tells Eleni (Cemre Paksoy) of her new gig tending to the elderly and infirm in “Night Nurse,” seeming to speak the new employee’s language when she adds that “it feels good to be needed.” From the looks of it, Eleni is more interested in that than a paycheck when she signs up to work at a hospice, actually excited about the prospect of caring for Douglas (Bruce McKenzie) when she’s been told he’s tough to find a match for after making a pass on his last housekeeper. She clearly welcomes the attention when Mona, who becomes a mentor, makes an introduction and doesn’t really seem like he’ll be a handful when even with a diagnosis of early dementia, neither his mind or his body seem to be all the much of an issue.
Of course there will be something that comes up in Georgia Bernstein’s bewitching debut feature, but it is never what you would think when a nursing home is the last place anyone would imagine a taut psychosexual neo-noir unfolding. Despite any perverse acts Douglas asks Eleni to engage in, it seems more so that Bernstein shrewdly sees an opportunity to explore codependency between a caregiver and their patient, in this case a wily senior past his physical sexual prime still turned on by the thought of holding control over another with his prowess for seduction and a young woman who wants to hand over control of her life to someone else when she hasn’t figured it out yet, but still wants to feel as if she’s actively contributing positively to something. While it turns out Douglas is all Eleni could ever want at this particular juncture in her life, her affections gradually go unreturned when what Douglas really wants is a challenge.
For those in the know, it isn’t the backhanded compliment it might seem to describe the film as having the feel of a surreal fever dream of a lurid potboiler you’d find on late night cable in the mid ‘90s, which Bernstein seems to nod to when casting no less than Mimi Rogers as Eleni’s supervisor. But beyond its initial forbidden pleasures, the film emerges like the kind of small miracle that John Dahl’s “The Last Seduction” was when there’s something both breathtakingly fresh in its perspective and endearingly old-fashioned about its expression, tethered to a criminal scheme that Douglas cooks up to take advantage of other residents in the community he lives in where other residents with dementia have no idea what they’re giving away, but feeling truly dangerous when Eleni becomes increasingly frustrated by what he can’t give her even though the relationship is quite literally supposed to be the reverse for the caregiver.
“Night Nurse” is arresting from its very first frames, as potent an invitation as there’s been in some time in following a telephone cord that proves crucial to Douglas’ con — perfectly setting up the idea it could ultimately end up strangling both himself and his nurse by the end and the fact dialogue is often not needed at all when cinematographer Lidia Nikonova (also recently responsible for the unnerving compositions in Lucy Kerr’s “Family Portrait”) shows a command over chiaroscuro lighting that can be alluring as Douglas when he wants to be and who holds the power in a relationship that exists squarely in the gray zone. That said, Bernstein has a real ear for it, creating a great push-and-pull within the words Douglas and Eleni use with one another and having the good sense to cast the wide-eyed Paksoy, in her first lead role, against a seasoned vet such as McKenzie, who surely looks like he could eat her alive. (Both acquit themselves well in the parts.) When there’s a great deal of tension generated from what can be known by the characters at their age, whether young or old, the one comfort the film provides throughout is knowing you’re in exceptionally skilled and assured hands yourself.
“Night Nurse” will screen again at the Sundance Film Festival on January 27th at 2:30 pm at the Megaplex Redstone, January 28th at 11:55 pm at the Library Center Theatre and January 31st at 3 pm at the Broadway Centre Cinemas. It will also be available to stream from January 29th through February 1st via the Sundance virtual platform.