Nocebo is a sinister, slow-burn tale of dark magic and revenge, starring the terrific Eva Green as Christine, an extremely neurotic children’s dress designer living with her successful market strategist husband Felix (Mark Stong) and young daughter Bobs (Billie Gadsdon).
One day a stranger appears at her door saying she is showing up for work. Christine is confused as to when she hired this woman but her embarrassment causes her to invite the woman in anyway, and move her to an upstairs bedroom. She is Diana (Chai Fonacier), a maternal, seemingly friendly Filipino woman who immediately makes herself indispensable around the house, and especially to Christine, using her folk remedies and potions to cure Christine of her many (probably psychosomatic) ailments. But there are plenty of forbidding bottles and vials hidden in Diana’s suitcase upstairs. And what’s with the ashes she spreads religiously outside her door every night?
Felix is immediately suspicious of Diana’s motives, and sets out trying to ferret out what, and who, she really is. The young daughter doesn’t take to her at first either, but slowly begins to fall under Diana’s spell. What’s so successful about Irish director Lorcan Finnegan’s film is the way he spins this spider web out until you finally see the whole malevolent pattern emerge. And the reveal is quite devastating.
Nocebo is in theaters and on Apple TV November 4th.
