Movie Review

Downloading Nancy

Reviewed by Owen Gleiberman | Jun 03, 2009

Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman is a film critic for EW

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EW's GRADE

C-

Details Rated: Unrated; Length: 102 Minutes; Genres: Drama, Thriller; With: Maria Bello and Jason Patric

DIGITAL DANGER: Maria Bello

An incest survivor (Maria Bello) acts out her damage by hooking up, via the Internet, with a man she asks to hurt her...and worse. Jason Patric plays the creep in question, and Rufus Sewell is cast against type as her boring, clueless husband. Shot in a chilly, desaturated palette, Downloading Nancy declares, in every frame, that we're in a world without love, faith, joy, or connection. There are brutal scenes with razor blades and other impromptu devices of erotic torment, but what makes the movie a trial to sit through isn't just the heroine's pain-freak tastes. It's that a kinkfest with this blah an emotional spectrum is selling its own chic form of puritanism — sex with all the life force repressed. C–

Originally posted Jun 02, 2009 Published in issue #1051 Jun 12, 2009 Order article reprints

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