Night Nurse is a movie of contrasts: It’s shocking and sensual, undeniably perverse and yet somehow weirdly wholesome. If nothing else, it’s entirely its own thing, taking a genre that disappeared almost entirely in the 2010s — the erotic thriller — and reimagining it on its own dreamy, unconventional terms. Writer-director Georgia Bernstein describes it as an “anti-erotic thriller,” a conscious effort to both push the boundaries of eroticism on-screen and subvert our expectations of what this type of film looks like.
“It’s the buildup,” Bernstein tells Inverse, sitting in the greenroom at the Robin Williams Center in New York City. She’s waiting to do a Q&A about Night Nurse with stars Cemre Paksoy and Bruce McKenzie and is describing her idea for her next movie. It’s another erotic thriller — this one’s set in Turkey, where Paksoy grew up — and Bernstein hopes that they can pull it off without a single on-screen kiss.
“In the simplest terms, I describe the tone as ‘hypnotic.’”
Night Nurse is set in northwest Chicago, where Bernstein’s grandmother lived until her death a few years ago at the age of 99. Bernstein also lived in Chicago for a while and was inspired to write her feature debut by a combination of circumstances, all of which made her think about nurturing and caring and the power dynamics contained within them. The movie is set in an ambiguous time period and begins with Eleni (Paksoy) interviewing for a job working nights at a retirement community. Despite some questions about how her last nursing gig ended, Eleni gets the job and is assigned to care for Doug (McKenzie), a resident who, despite his advanced age and medical issues, still radiates sexual charisma.
The 40-plus-year age gap between the leads is a big part of what makes Night Nurse so provocative. Bernstein plays with the audience’s discomfort over the pairing, taking this tension and channeling it into a plot where Eleni and Doug team up to scam Doug’s fellow senior citizens by having Eleni call them and pretend to be one of their grandchildren. “Grandma, I’m in trouble,” Eleni says, and Doug takes the phone and explains that the mark’s granddaughter has gotten herself into some legal trouble, and that they need to wire him bail money immediately.
It’s a nefarious scheme, not least because both Doug and Eleni get off on it. The story that unfolds from there is full of intrigue, dreamy and enigmatic and deeply subversive. Bernstein is keenly aware of the potential for exploitation here and gracefully sidesteps it with an emphasis on sensuality and textures and touch. It’s the year’s most original thriller, and not one that you’re likely to forget. Inverse spoke with Bernstein about crafting Night Nurse, and the state of the erotic thriller today.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Your filmmaking is very sensual, which is a talent not a lot of directors have. When somebody puts their hand on somebody else’s back, I can feel it through the screen. Is that something you’ve consciously cultivated?
I talk a lot about the film as an “anti-erotic thriller,” because there aren’t a lot of traditional [sex scenes]. Douglas does say, “If you want a ride, you won’t get it from me.” It’s subtle, but he’s meant to be impotent, and so [scamming] is how they get their kicks.
But we did try to make everything feel sensual and slow. Cemre [Paksoy, who plays Eleni] doesn’t ever walk into a room; she slides along the wall or on the ground. The way people move through the world was born out of this very specific tone — whenever something felt too much like real life, it broke the spell of the movie.
When you say the movie has a very specific tone — how would you describe that?
In the simplest terms, I describe the tone as “hypnotic.” It comes from a couple of things. I really worked hard to bring together groups of people that I think understood that tone, and then I really left it to them to understand it and make it their own. Every single person who worked on this [movie] was an absolute star.
With my editor and my DP, I watched David Cronenberg’s Crash. And then for my actors, I had them look at Catherine Breillat movies —
Breillat comes up a lot when talking about this movie.
I like what Breillat does with the suburbs.
“The ambiguity is meant to make you feel unmoored in the space, and it’s a delicate balance.”
That’s where the most perverse things happen.
The alienation always leads to something weird.
Speaking of the different departments — this story is marked by a lot of ambiguity. How did you incorporate ambiguity into the visuals?
My editor Alex [Jacobs] and I worked very carefully to craft what information you get and what you don’t get. Actually, there was a little bit more [exposition] in the script than in the edit. It’s a very delicate world, and there were times when it felt like if we revealed too much, it could break the spell or it could start to fall apart. Even simple things like, “We see too many contemporary cars in the background of this shot. We can’t use it.”
You do have that great vintage convertible.
We do see some contemporary cars. I don’t mind that too much. But for the most part, I wanted the time period to be ambiguous as well. The ambiguity is meant to make you feel unmoored in the space, and it’s a delicate balance.
That makes me think of the idea of liminality. A retirement community is a liminal space — you’re waiting there to die, essentially.
That definitely makes all the characters act in a desperate fashion. It creates an aura of desperation. I do think at least Eleni and Douglas feed off of that energy.
One fact that I think surprises a lot of people is that this story was inspired by your grandmother, with whom you were quite close.
My grandma got scammed [in a similar way to the people in the movie], and someone was on the other end of the phone. I thought it was interesting that there were people out there that were being very theatrical with their scams, calling other people and pretending to be in trouble. They’re almost like actors. These crimes are like performance art. So I was like, “Oh, this would be a fun thing to put into a film.”
Also, I was living in Chicago when I was writing this script, and there were these giant billboards advertising medical schools everywhere. They said, “It’s amazing to be needed.” And I thought that slogan was a perfect way into talking about some ideas that were occurring in [my] relationship at the time — a very long relationship that was ending. There was some toxicity there, and I thought nurses would be a good container to talk about these ideas. It also fit well with the scam, so I put those ideas together and got an erotic thriller at a retirement community.
It is a good hook. Like you said, underneath the perversity of it all, it really is a movie about the need to be needed.
Yeah. That’s even outside of my romantic relationship. I think all the women in my family are caregiver types. And then it just became this onion of ideas. There’s also the idea of the nurse as an erotic trope — usually she’s the object of desire, but here she’s the desiring one. It was all these ideas being put together.
My grandmother was a caregiver. She would have been an easy target for a scam that involved anyone in our family. She lived a beautiful life. She lived to be 99.
Ninety-nine is incredible.
She comes up a lot, obviously. Everyone’s like, “Did she like the movie?” And I’m like, “She’s dead.”
But you filmed [the movie] at her house, right?
Yes. She died [before we started filming], but we hadn’t sold her house yet. It’s funny, there were so many wholesome elements to making this film. My grandma’s neighbors, who were her neighbors for a long time, came to see the movie when it was playing in Chicago. They were so cute — they were like, “We’re from the city. We’re not shocked by anything.”
I like that you can sense that I’m family-oriented from the film.
It made intuitive sense to me that this movie was made by someone who cares about their grandma, because the elderly people getting scammed isn’t played for laughs. It’s actually very serious, and the fact that they’re scamming seniors is what makes the characters despicable.
I never wanted the movie to exploit [its elderly characters] in that way. That was something I thought about. I tried to think about the exploitation of every character in the film, actually, especially with the figure of the nurse.
The older man/younger woman dynamic is a common one in erotic films — are you subverting it by taking it to such an extreme?
Exactly, yes. Actually, I don’t think I’ve told anybody this yet — in the original version of the script, in the very first draft, Doug was not Eleni’s patient. He was another character entirely. But it became clear very early on that that made no sense, and it would make the film so much more exciting if he was her patient.
It definitely adds a lot to the push and pull.
Yeah, it was obvious, but it wasn’t clear to me that that would work. I think I was a little scared to make that choice — not because I was scared of making the movie or making that movie. It’s more like I wasn’t sure it was worth it, because it would require really specific casting.
“You’re still drawn to him. And that’s really tricky.”
What were you looking for that was hard to find?
I think it’s because I didn’t write [the part of Douglas] for anyone in particular. All the main female parts in the film were written for the people who played them. So part of what was challenging was that we were casting such a wide net. When you’re just [putting out a casting call] for “65 plus,” you get so many different types of people. The role requires someone who is really playful but also has a darkness inside. I wanted — I can barely call him a “dirty old man,” but this old guy who’s despicable, but you’re still in love with him. You’re still drawn to him. And that’s really tricky.
It is.
That could go to a cliché place or a male gaze place or a predatory place so easily, and everything about the movie is very soft.
So when would you say it all came together into this specific, delicate thing?
I think it came together at different times. It would happen over and over again: production, edit, and then the music and then the sound design and the color. There was a cycle of discovery over and over again.
That’s exciting.
So exciting. I feel really lucky.
