Scams inside a senior living facility

  

   

   Night Nurse takes place inside a high-end assisted living facility where some residents have a nurse with them at all times -- one serving during the day and another at night. Many of the residents suffer from dementia. 

    From the outset, director Georgia Bernstein makes it clear that she's not interested in exposing elder-care abuse. Heavy on atmospherics, Night Nurse embarks on a study of how care-giving relationships can be tainted by perversity and exploitation.

   Bernstein begins by introducing Eleni (Cemre Paksoy), a young nurse who's being interviewed for a job by the residential community's director (Mimi Rogers). Despite a shaky interview, Paksoy's Eleni lands the job as night nurse for Douglas Callum (Bruce McKenzie), a crank who's recognized as one of the facility's more difficult patients.

    Douglas's day nurse (Eleonore Hendricks) tries to clue the newbie into the ways of the place, which -- as we'll discover -- become increasingly weird.

    Douglas may not be as deep into Alzheimer's as it seems. It doesn't take long for Douglas, who makes sexual advances toward Elena, to enlist her help in a scheme. She's asked to call other residents and pretend to be a granddaughter who has been arrested after an auto accident. Douglas then gets on the phone, poses as the girl's lawyer, and asks that money be sent at once.

     The scam works, and Eleni starts to crave the illicit charge provided by the fraud. Her desires are pitted against those Douglas displays or withholds.

      Still, as played by Paksoy, Eleni is difficult to read. She's kinky in complex ways that aren't easily understood because there's something guarded and protected about her. 

      It's not easy to predict where this self-contained movie might be headed or what it wants to say. Described as a "psychosexual thriller," the movie comes up short on at least half of that description, notably the "thriller" part. 

     Bernstein hints at themes involving the nurses' desire to be needed and how a willingness to care for someone can be distorted into something destructive. Beyond that, there are questions about who possesses the most power as the relationship seesaw tips this way or that.

      Those are interesting ideas to explore, but they're also difficult to contain in a film that doesn't have much of a story to tell. Night Nurse feels as if it's unfolding in a limbo where the mystery of it all can feel listless, as if the characters are living in a trance state in which the film imprisons them.