Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Jerrie It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

charlytully Out of thousands of movies I remember, DOWNLOADING NANCY has the most blatant product placement by far. Cans of Pepsi Cola are visible in nearly half the scenes. Characters even ask each other, "Don't you want more Pepsi now?" Since Pepsi is used throughout this film as a metaphor for infamous "People's Temple" pope Jim Jones' lethal Kool-Aid (a registered smiley face trademark) concoction a few years back during his 900-person mass suicide stunt in South America (from which the ubiquitous expression "Don't drink the Kool-Aid," meaning 1)"don't be bamboozled," and 2)"hang in there" derives), a savvy viewer can only conclude that COCA COLA paid the entire budget of this movie. A word to the wise, then: if you don't want to barf during your next round of the "Pepsi taste test" due to the subliminal anti-Pepsi message of DOWNLOADING NANCY, then do NOT download this flick into your brain! On a related note, the actress playing the title character here is clearly anorectic, as anyone pausing the film at about the 57:05 mark will surely deduce. Please, someone, buy Maria Bello a REAL milkshake before she goes the way of Karen Carpenter.

Raymond I'm gonna start out by saying that this may be the most depressing and distressing movie I've ever seen and I've seen a few. It hit me from behind, I had no idea what I was about to watch. Sure, there are movies about for example the holocaust(s) and some powerful horror movies, but this movie managed to beat them to it. I was a bit surprised about the low score, as this really is such a well crafted movie that it deserves better. Altho I understand some may be put off by it's absolute bleakness. It's slow, and it's very hard to watch. On the negative side, there is a tiny amount of exploitment, as the story is said to be inspired by true events and the direction does underline a bit. This is where I drop the score one point. It's a difficult scenario with (inspired by) true stories, as you can't really know what the directors motive was to put this on screen. Is it his affection for subjects portrayed here or the fact that he wants to make people think about unfortunate people you don't often see on the media.Maria Bello portrays an utterly depressed woman who has been abused as a child and can no longer connect with her husband (Rufus Sewell). She then contacts a man (Jason Patrick) online who agrees to kill her. The story jumps right into it and is not 100 % linear, which is a bit distracting here and there, but also works for the benefit of the dark story.There are as many sides to the story as there are characters involved. It could be seen as a directorial success that even tho the story is partly seen thru his husband, it still manages to keep him as a bit of a mystery. The focus is always on Nancy. There are a lot of scenes where Nancys husband is shown after Nancy leaves to meet her killer, but we are never really let inside the husbands thoughts. On the other hand, Nancy's character may be underlined too much. Is this a directorial decision to focus on Nancy's need for attention or just to have as many scenes as possible to show Nancys downfall, I don't know. I'm guessing it's all intentional as the movie is quite well crafted and every detail seems to be there for a reason.There is one scene in particular which had a tremendous impact on me. The one where she starts a food war during a bleak dinner. This is probably the only moment in the movie where you can see a spark in her eye. Only to be shot down immediately by her husbands reaction.Where this movie may fail a bit is that it is easy to see the husband as a baddie. Or at least this is how I take it from the reviews written here. Had the story been portrayed from another perspective, we could've seen a tormented man who has focused on his hobby to stay sane in a non working, infertile marriage. There are people who are unable to show their feelings. Nancy had a tragic past, but this could also be a case of bad matchmaking to begin with.A word of praise must go to Jason Patrick, who makes an unbelievably chilling role. It's completely new, never seen a character like his played on screen. There are scenes where his eyes show zero emotion, yet at times you can feel his empathy and care. I read he replaced Ray Liotta and this is a small victory. Liotta has played so many psycho roles that he would've watered down the whole movie. Jason Patrick hasn't been in a lot of movies and thinking about it now, he's a perfect choice for the role.I read somewhere that the director credits his homeland Sweden. He points out that only Finnish people may be more depressed than they. Maybe it is the fact that I'm Finnish that I really felt this movie and didn't see it pointless and slow waste of time as some have said it to be.

monsterkil Downloading Nancy is fine piece of cinema. It perplexes you through out the entire time, showing the hidden box of feelings and ideas most people wont admit or share, thematics that are disguised with effort in order to adapt to the fine "perfect" machine humans have created to put some sense of order in life. The themes presented compose elements that mankind tends to ignore and expel in a funny attempt to give lucidity to the paradoxical events of life.This story enlightens a slice of a woman's life who is getting in touch with the marks of the past, the wounds of the present and the prospects of the future as well as trying to manage the whole concept of reality and the real satisfaction that she can pull out of life, and in a very realistic way(and somehow raw, like life) the audience can assist to the "release" of all these factors. The events are told in a mix of flashbacks and the present time line in which the characters are explored and keep progressing to the clash of a choice not everyone can understand.You should take your time to think about what our experiences do to ourselves and to those surrounding us; the meaning of life, actions, words and everything. Nothing is bad, nothing is good, it's only a question of perception.Like many other movies and works of art it always comes down to the way the audience interprets the experience, but one can still analyze and question the message passed. This is a reality. Deal with it.

Turfseer As is often the case, films about self-loathing characters do not usually make for good drama. 'Downloading Nancy' is no exception. It's supposedly based on a true story about a woman who's murdered at her own request by someone she meets over the internet.The protagonist is Nancy (Maria Bello) who is married to Albert (Rufus Sewell). Albert is a successful software developer who has developed a golf game which his company has successfully marketed to various bars and bar/restaurants. Unlike most human beings, Albert has virtually no positive attributes (except for his ability to be successful in the business world). Throughout the film, Albert has a grim and dour expression on his face. He has no sympathy for his wife with all her emotional problems and resorts to patronizing prostitutes. When his wife asks for sex, he punishes her by masturbating in her presence instead.Nancy is equally one-note as a character. Not only has she had a loveless 15 year marriage but was sexually abused by her uncle when she was growing up (thankfully there are no flashbacks of that back story in the film). Her self-loathing takes the form of self-mutilation and a result, she's forced into therapy. However, she has such contempt for her therapist that no progress can be made.Finally, Nancy is so depressed that she contacts Louis over the internet. He's sort of a sadomasochistic gigolo, who has sex with women for money while inflicting massive amounts of pain to boot. It's revealed that Louis has two children but no longer sees them (the children's mother no longer wants anything to do with him).Nancy's plan is to first have painful sex with Louis and then have him kill her. There's a particularly unpleasant scene where Louis has sex with Nancy while slashing her vaginal area with a broken piece of glass. These scenes are shown as flashbacks after Louis pays a visit to Albert who ties him up and strikes him with a golf club. It seems that Louis has a two-fold plan in going to see Albert: 1) berate him for his treatment of Nancy and 2) enjoy the beating he receives. It takes awhile before Louis will reveal Nancy's fate—first, he forces Albert to do him the favor of taking his dog to a relative so someone will care for it in the future. Nancy's fate of course is that Louis finally ended up choking her to death (but showed some hesitation first as he made it clear that he had some 'feelings' for her). We soon learn that Louis is imprisoned for life for Nancy's murder.What exactly are we to take away from a film such as Downloading Nancy? Are we supposed to feel sorry for victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence? Is that the main point of the film? Is sympathy for Nancy actually warranted? I don't think so. The film's writers create a straw man in the character of Albert—someone who is so cut off from his emotions that he is the one that is held responsible for Nancy's decline. But are people so one-dimensional in real life? I think not. They have the repulsive Louis, a man who makes a living by inflicting pain, come over and berate Albert for neglecting Nancy. Furthermore, his expressions of love towards Nancy (before he kills her), is supposed to show his 'sensitive side'.In the end, it matters little whether the filmmakers have defined where their sympathies lie with the various characters in the film. They are so bent on titillating their audience with scenes of gratuitous violence, that Downloading Nancy becomes nothing more than an exercise in poor taste and soft pornography.