The Nest: British Conmen in the 1980s

 

THE NEST (2020)

Directed by Sean Durkin

IFC Films, 107 minutes, R (language, nudity)

★★

 

 

 

We don’t get all of the films released in Britain but to the best of my knowledge, there is a dearth of films that look at the hyperventilated capitalism of Margaret Thatcher’s reign of error in the 1980s. Most of the British actors I’ve seen in such films came to America to make films about the toxic speculative fever of the 1980s/90s. I simply don’t know of many UK films akin to The Wolf of Wall Street, Wall Street, The Big Short, or even Other People’s Money.

 

To be sure, there are plenty of British films about Thatcher’s cruel budgets that eviscerated organized labor and eliminated tens of thousands of blue-collar jobs–Mike Leigh has feasted on those topics–but not many turn their gaze to the midlevel money men akin to Icarus in business suits. In other words, a film like The Nest is long overdue. Alas, Britain remains in need of a good film on the topic. The Nest isn’t terrible, but it is as flat as month-old real ale.

 

Rory O’Hara (Jude Law) lives in New York with his American wife Allison (Carrie Coon); Sam (Oona Roche), Allison’s daughter from a previous partner; and their mutual son, Ben (Carlie Shotwell). They are a solid middle-class family, with Rory working in the financial sector and Allison training equestrian riders. Rory, though, has been following the superheated U.S. markets and has bigger dreams. He contacts Arthur Davis (Michael Culkin), an investor for whom he once worked, and informs his family that they are moving to England. Rory thinks he can bring his pokey countrymen up to warp speed, leases an enormous Surrey country estate, and uproots a contented family to make them accessories to his Brobdingnagian schemes.

 

I should remind readers that the early 1980s were still the infancy of second-wave feminism if, by that, we mean widespread cultural acceptance. Women–and perhaps especially so in the UK–were still expected to defer to male guidance. Call Allison an early adopter. Neither she nor her kids particularly like Britain and only Rory admires their creepy, dark new home. Allison quickly recognizes that the old pile is more a monument to Rory’s ego than a home for four. And this is just the tip of Rory’s delusions. He thinks he’s bringing Arthur up-to-date and will make a fortune for those who go along with his big plans. Arthur, on the other hand, is largely bemused by Rory and loves his energy, but he’s basically doing him a solid in the belief that Rory wanted to move back home.

 

Rory plays the game, but the only one he’s fooling with his puffed up, jargon-ridden rap is himself. He’s the lite beer version of Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken, and Kenneth Lay and when Arthur shoots down his big deal with the curt “you don’t pay attention to the details,” Rory is forced to grab at considerably thinner straws than he imagined. Arthur isn’t the only one calling for the hogwash bucket to be emptied. One of the few interesting parts of the film is Allison’s transformation from enabler to plug puller.

The Nest is meant to be an ironic twist on “nest egg,” investments earmarked for long-security goals in mind. Icarian gamblers often raid such funds in the hope that short-term cash infusions will yield instant riches. They are the stock broker equivalency of those who think they will break the casino bank. It’s the hare racing the tortoise and the moral of the adage that a fool and his money soon part company. Generally speaking, only the uber-rich walk away from the table with controlled damage.

 

The Nest would have been a much more interesting story with more Allison and less Rory. Carrie Coon is much more intriguing than Jude Law (though the two have a steamy sex scene). She does a slow burn, a personal tragedy sends her over the edge, and once she takes that step, there’s no turning back, and she unsheathes her metaphorical claws. Law could have done with a bit of her nuance; his Rory is such an obvious fraud that his fall is merely a question of how, not if. As we wait for it, backstories involving family crises–especially those of the children–feel more tacked on than integral to the unfolding drama. Too much occurs with so little foreshadowing that it seems like filler.

 

Britain needs a good mass market movie about the amorality of its 1980s capitalist conmen. Alas, The Nest is made of grass, string, and feathery down–too fragile to hold much of anything, including viewer interest.

 

Rob Weir