Movie Review : A ‘Nerve’ of reality
Last July, the movie Nerve hits the cinema starring Dave Franco together with Scream Queens’ Emma Roberts. The film gave a roller coaster ride, although, at the beginning, the narrative is predictable that you would think the story is just a same old chic flick, but as it runs thru its track and put you on its first drop that is the part where the real story begins.
‘Nerve’ is the title of the fictional game in the movie wherein who wants to be part of it can choose whether to be a watcher or a player . A watcher watches the player doing dares where the players must accomplish. The watchers also dictate the dares in the game. The more watcher a player has (sorta like the more Facebook like you have) the more a player will win the game. Nerve is an allegory that unfolds the deep reality of what social media have become. Parallel to the game, social media has players too : the users who open up themselves to social media, and the watchers are individuals who watch every post on social media, they also read, like, post and comment.
The movie successfully gave a dose of reality, for an instance it shows a parallelism on the consumers of online media to the behaviors of the characters of the movie.
One great example is the character of Sydney, who chooses to be a player of the game. She became so addicted to it that it ruined her relationship with her best friend who took over her popularity in the game. Sydney craved for watchers and she would do anything to gather attention and to be on top of the game again. Her character is interesting and real, because it’s obvious that many consumers of social media are lot like her.
Social media is an open book and have become a public diary or to simplify, it is becoming like a huge glass house where someone lives inside it can be seen by the public. Many eyes would watch the person who lives in that glasshouse. Social media work that way nowadays, there are a lot of eyes checking on your profile, then leave remarks while hiding behind their computers. Also, another parallelism Nerve portrays was a scene in the film in the final round of ‘Nerve’ where everyone wears a mask then these watchers in the arena need to vote whether to kill Vee (Emma Roberts) or not. The result, they approved to kill her. Those people who voted to kill her had the confidence, the nerve, to do unbelievable things because their identities were sealed.
Nerve is a great film to watch as it intends to raise awareness about the disturbing behavior of most social media user . Also, a liberating film as it talks about the obsession of many people has in regards to the image people portray online. More importantly, it shows how powerful social media is and the consequence awaits in the future if we continue to misuse this. At the beginning, social media is created to be a tool of liberation and a marketplace of idea wherein consumers synergize. In the end, this tool shouldn’t dictate everyone to choose whether to be a player or a watcher.
Originally published at thoughtsiclebykim.wordpress.com on August 17, 2016.
