Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Nanny’ on Amazon Prime Video, an Astute Drama About the Immigrant Experience, With a Horror Fringe

Nanny (now on Amazon Prime Video) is the work of a promising first-time feature director, Nikyatu Jusu, who crafts an insightful story of a Senegalese immigrant whose haunting dreams seem to be slowly seeping into her waking life. The domestic drama with a tantalizing veneer of horror debuted at Sundance 2022, where star Anna Diop’s penetrating character work and the film’s substantial atmospherics earned it the Grand Jury Prize. But will it cross over to mainstream audiences?

NANNY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: It’s official. It’s a little awkward, but it’s official: Aisha (Anna Diop) just landed a nanny gig, for which she’ll take care of young Rose (Rose Decker), daughter to Amy (Michelle Monaghan) and Adam (Morgan Spector). The vibe is… odd. Friendly, but definitely odd. Amy gives Aisha a binder full of helpful information, and a hug. Amy seems relieved to have found some help, and reassured as Aisha quickly bonds with the adorable, agreeable Rose. So what did they agree on for Aisha to stay overnight? $100? No, Aisha corrects her, it’s $150. Odd, that there’d be a quibble over 50 lousy dollars, especially considering Amy and her family live in a modern condo with its own private elevator and a refrigerator stocked with precision-stacked containers of food that Rose doesn’t like. So Aisha makes her Senegalese food, and she eats it right up.

Aisha is an immigrant from Senegal, her young son back home in the care of a cousin; soon she’ll make enough money for them to travel to New York, hopefully in time for the boy’s birthday. She facetimes with her boy, and clearly aches to see him in person, to touch him. But sometimes, Aisha seems… troubled. By something. Something noncorporeal, arriving with ominous drones on the soundtrack. Like when she dreams of drowning in bed, wet sheets suffocating her, or when she’s in the fancy apartment and the shower comes on and nobody’s in it, and Rose is just playing hide-and-seek under her parents’ bed. Amy invites people over for a fancy-dress dinner party to celebrate Adam’s return from a trip – he’s a war correspondent – and lends Aisha a gorgeous red form-fitting dress so she may stand nearby and not participate in the conversation about political strife. But at least she’s dressed for the occasion.

The strange dreams continue, sometimes during the day at inopportune times – another nanny scolds Aisha at the park after Rose wanders off the grounds. The concierge in Amy and Adam’s building, Malik (Sinqua Walls), asks her on a date, and she meets his mother (Leslie Uggams), who’s less than a psychic but more than a folklorist, so let’s say she’s sort of a… mystic? Sure. She opens up to Malik, and he to her. Tensions bubble with Amy and Adam, who are nice people I think, save for Amy not paying Aisha’s overtime, prompting Aisha to pester Adam for the cash. Meanwhile, Aisha’s hallucinations become increasingly lucid, and they get worse once she reads Rose a children’s story about Anansi, a mischievous figure from West African folklore. He’s a spider, Anansi. Don’t say you haven’t been warned, arachnophobes.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Nanny is in the same sort-of elevated-horror league as Atlantics, a romance with an unsettling supernatural fringe.

Performance Worth Watching: Diop – of DC TV series Titans – is extraordinary as a strong, smart woman whose confidence is shaken by the apparent supernatural elements encroaching upon her life.

Memorable Dialogue: A fellow African-immigrant friend gives Aisha perspective on being a slave back home or a slave in America: “At least here, when you work, you see the money.”

Sex and Skin: A thoroughly steamy sex scene steeped in succulent purple lighting.

Our Take: Jusu has tremendous control over Nanny’s visual composition – the lighting and color scheme are evocative, and the surrealist dream/dreamlike sequences are subtle and creepy. Narratively, however, the film doesn’t find enough traction with the scary stuff, and is significantly stronger in dramatizing the struggles of a still-young immigrant contending with microaggressions that feel like regular aggressions, and the occasional regular aggression that hits like a shotgun blast.

Unfortunately, the horror components feel underdeveloped, weirdness used as food coloring for the story, or a superficial extrapolation upon Aisha’s struggles – mythic forces from back home making their way into her stead to help her or warn her or just generally make the movie more interesting. It’s compelling, but never fully sets its hook. Jusu finds far greater means of provocation in the cultural and racial dynamics simmering beneath the surface of Aisha and Amy’s exchanges, and cultivates a tender romance between Aisha and Malik that gets nudged aside for skittering spiders and Aisha’s frequent visions of her drowning. There’s plenty to like and appreciate about Nanny, especially the cast; Jusu inspires a performance form Diop that cleanly draws out the subtext about the immigrant experience. Alienation and guilt may be the most poignant horrors in this story.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Despite its flaws Nanny is from a skilled filmmaker who deserves our eyes on her work.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.