This movie centers around the struggling life of Nancy, a young girl suffering from psycho, as she impersonates different personalities through the internet while talking with people, but incidents come to climax, when she meets a couple who search for their long lost daughter, the thing that inspires her, as she does her best, in order to convince them that she is their daughter.
What unfolds is an intimate exercise in acceptance and delusion, an exploration of grief and diminished hope conducted by a trio of highly skilled actors.
The lifting of emotional barriers isn't just beautifully portrayed by the actors, but evoked by the arresting compositions of cinematographer Zoe White and an unsettling score from Peter Raeburn that grows more intense as the film wears on.
Nancy is a slow burn - particularly for a film of this length - but its subtlety is its power: the movie isn't dazzling or loud like fireworks, but just like the glowing embers of a campfire, it can absolutely still burn.
Nancy is a grim piece of work, but Choe's empathy for her protagonist gives the film its distinctive texture - woebegone, with flickers of both hope and dread.
Nancy is an assured and genius debut from first-time feature director Christina Choe. Much like its protagonist, the film is an enigmatic and wholly original take.
Smith-Cameron and Buscemi are both terrific, Buscemi for the fullness of his subtlety (so much going on in the looks and silences) and Smith-Cameron, for the depths of pain she can suggest, even when she plays a surface happiness.
