Film review: The Nest

Jude Law (right) and Carrie Coon star as a struggling socialite couple in The Nest.

The Nest (R, 117 mins) Streaming on Netflix

Directed by Sean Durkin

The Nest is a terrific domestic drama focusing on Allison O’Hara (Carrie Coon) and Rory O’Hara (Jude Law), a glamorous couple living in New York with their vulnerable pre-teen son Ben (Charlie Shotwell) and Allison’s mostly sullen teenage daughter Sam (Oona Roche).

Rory sees to it that they look well-established, but their big house belongs to somebody else; their life is full of illusion and delusion.

Rory, an ambitious, devious commodities trader turns out to be a discontented man, while Allison is relatively stable and determined to be Allison, not Mrs Rory O’Hara.

Hers is a battle against the patriarchy of the 80s; she learns the hard way how to survive in a very tough world.

Unexpectedly, Rory is about to learn a similar lesson.

Bored in New York and not getting what he wants quickly enough, Rory upends his family, including Allison’s beloved horse Richmond, and sets off back home to England where he rents a vast, spooky, multi-turreted but deteriorating manor house in Surrey “with the option to buy”.

The house takes on a sort of malignant feeling, like The Shining’s Overlook hotel, and the pained neighing of Richmond quickly establishes him as the symbol of all that’s wrong between Allison and Rory.

There’s some good banter between the kids, thanks to director Sean Durkin’s script, some suitably smart trader talk between Rory and his boss Arthur Davis (Michael Culkin), some wonderful quips from Allison and a revealing, prickly interchange between Rory and his estranged mother (Anne Reid in a brilliant cameo).

It’s not all about relationships and talk, however.

There’s much more to this tale of woe, as we watch Allison’s clever attempts to avoid being dragged down by Rory and his web of lies.

The social commentary on the 80s is still relevant now.

The casting is perfect. Jude Law’s Rory uses the smile of an insincere charmer to worm his way back into the English firm he’d left 10 years earlier, hoping to make his fortune in America, and Carrie Coon’s Allison is ideal as an apparently well-bred New York socialite who trains horses and riders.

Superficial, Gatsby-like Rory is driven by the idea that in England, he and his trophy wife will impress people who matter; he believes he’s the best person to make big deals in the coming deregulated market under Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, but it’s no use pretending to be a deal maker of mythological proportions if, one after another, people can see through you.

Just as markets crash, so do Rory’s illusions.

Finally, as Allison tries desperately to put life back into poor tormented Richmond, in so doing seeming to want to bring life back into her relationship with Rory, Rory himself is getting the advice of his life from none other than a London cabby. What a wake-up call.

While Carrie Coon’s Allison is sensitive, aware, a passionate horsewoman, a loving but ultimately betrayed wife, and a protective mother, she has found her recipe for survival.

The jury is out on whether Jude Law’s Rory will pick himself up and if he does, what he will make of his life.

★★★★

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