Nerve (2016)

Nerve

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PR9MOPTI7g

‘A high school senior finds herself immersed in an online game of truth or dare, where her every move starts to become manipulated by an anonymous community of "watchers.”

Nerve (2016) is an American thriller film and themes that run throughout this film are revenge, greed, love, and sacrifice. This film was written by Jessica Sharzer and directed by Henry Joost and based on the 2012 novel. This film stars Emma Roberts and Dave Franco that are really famous actors/actresses, which again made the film really popular, engaging a wide audience. The cinematography was by Michael Simmonds and distributed by Lionsgate. The budget of the film was $20 million, but the box office was $81 million.

The film has visual effects throughout the film making the film very colourful and engaging to the audience.  You could see what they’re doing on their phones, beside them indicating in a sense that the audience is involved in the game with Venus. Venus and Sydney showed a theme of greed when they wanted to keep playing more and more without knowing the consequence of their actions. Again, the girls showed the theme of defeat and revenge when they kept playing the game more each time.

In the opening scene, music is played in the absence of light, then appears the Mac opening password control, where someone types in their password, automatically the audience feel like there virtually in this with this person. After this scene, a wide shot of a necklace is shown, named ‘Venus’ indicating to the audience that this person is a female protagonist in this film, which is shown in the first 1.20 duration of the film. Sydney introduces the game ‘nerve’ through a video chat with Venus. The game is addictive, which a lot of teenagers take part of to do dares and gain money. Venus’ act of doing more and more dares can reflect on her lifestyle, loss of her brother and her Mother wanting her to go college, but can’t afford a dorm, so making her stay at home. This is all shown through Venus writing up a response to not going to her college.

The meaning of Nerve:

This film brings all these various threads together, highlighting the potential dangers of social media. It queries whether anonymity can absolve you of responsibility; whether you should do reckless or dangerous things to be popular, in response to peer-pressure, or for money; whether you should allow an app complete access to your digital footprint and banking details.