If you can remember the ’80s, were you really there? Do you want to remember? What, even the shoulder pads? Very spoilery. (My five star review is here.)
“Rory. Stop.” So ends The Nest, with wife Allison finally asserting her authority, literally and figuratively now at the head of the table, when he skulks in to breakfast after a disastrous night.
****************
But let us recap what has got him here. After moving back to London, and renting an unsuitable country house for his family, Rory is convinced he can bring American-style success to his new firm, soon trying to get his boss Arthur to sell his own company to an American firm. Arthur listens but then decides not to go ahead, the reason why Rory’s contact, at the American firm, stopped returning Rory’s calls. Rory is furious, and is slapped down by Arthur for his rudeness, presumption and lack of attention to detail. Next Rory tries to muscle in on a deal his colleague Steve has been building with entrepreneurs in the Norwegian fishing industry. Steve is solid, smart in both senses but unglamorous, and knows when to stop.
Allison’s horse, which collapsed while she was riding him, has to be shot by a neighbouring farmer who then digs a grave for it on Allison and Rory’s land.
Rory goes to see his mum, who has never met his family. He invites her over but she declines. it transpires he also has a brother but hasn’t kept in touch.
He and Allison argue in their house. Allison then gets a labouring job with the farmer. Ben is bullied at his private school, while Sam tries to impress the local kids from her comprehensive school.
Rory and Allison attend a dinner with with the Norwegian businessmen and Steve. Rory becomes more and more extravagant in his claims, including that he is getting into Portuguese property and has bought a condo there. Allison bluntly pulls him up on his lies in front of everyone before leaving the restaurant. She gives her long fur coat to the coat-check girl, then heads to a nightclub and gets drunk.
At home, Sam, who is meant to be babysitting Ben, hosts an impromptu party with her local friends while Ben hides in his room and ventures into the grounds, where he sees something amiss with the land where Allison’s horse is buried.
After the dinner, Steve tells Rory the Norwegians were not impressed with him and want to do business only with Steve. Allison starts driving home drunk, but presumably pulls over and falls asleep in her car. Rory gets a taxi home and admits to the driver he lies about his wealth and has no money. The taxi driver is unimpressed with Rory’s claims to parenting and doesn’t believe Rory can pay the fare, so stops and makes him get out of the car and walk home.
Allison wakes up in her car in the morning and drives home. She finds the party remnants, and Ben hiding in his room. He shows her outside, and Allison weeps while digging up her beautiful horse with her bare hands. Sam appears.
Sam and Ben go and make breakfast. Rory makes it home, looking at the outside of the house as if wondering what he’s been playing at. In the dining room, Allison is now — significantly — at the head of the table. Sam gives Rory a chair and he sits down. He starts to say something about moving to a flat in London but Allison punctures him with a blunt “Rory. Stop.” He eats a piece of toast then starts crying.
The ending is quietly audacious. You can tell he’s still his usual bumptious self, he can’t help it, but his wife and kids metaphorically sit on him and he has to be contrite.
But for how long? Will it last? Is it the end of Rory? I suspect he would continue the destructive cycle. Allison would leave him, he’d buy her a house, then he’d lose his next shaky fortune in the houseprice crash of the early ’90s, having to sell his own and his wife’s homes when interest rates peaked. Then he’d probably lose a smaller, even shakier fortune in the first dotcom crash of the end of that decade, his employees, including the company masseuse, coming to work one day to find the removal men putting brightly-coloured cube furniture into trucks. Nowadays he’d probably be claiming he has a stash of bitcoin but has forgotten the password. (I have no idea how Bitcoin passwords work; I have met a lot of Rorys though.)
The Nest is in UK cinemas now and is available on digital in the US:
Your review was more interesting than the movie. Wish I’d just gone to bed.
Thank you!
Me too it was boring, like nothing made sense in it,and then you think that maybe something was going to be scary but it was just boring and stupid and then it just was over done,the credits just start rolling and that was it boring, stupid and just done!!
Exactly!
Omg seriously people, it’s so easy to be a snob with you lot. The movie was fantastic! Jude Law is absolutely amazing. The horse was just trying to get out as it was alive! that’s what makes it so sad!. And the ending? The 4 of them having a small breakfast reunited as a family it’s so amazing making them look so normal and basic after being surrounded by all that luxury. Anyway, go back to your marvel movies
The horse was not alive. He was dead, but was not properly buried, so the body was being pushed out of the earth.
Terrible, terrible movie.
– What was the meaning of the horse rising from the ground?
– The front door opening after Allison locked it?
Assume it is some warning for Allison should leave her husband. But what a pointless movie, where nothing really happens.
Nothing made sense how did the horse rise out of dirt. I ve seen some bad ones, this may win. The name, the horse suffering ln the dark barn.
Such an awful film that was a waste of everyone’s time, including production. Never again will I trust this director to do any good in the world.
We gave up when the woman continually smoked in every scene.
Lol why on earth would her smoking stop you watching the film? 😂😂😂
Yes and smoking and being an athlete do not mix. Horseback riding and equestrian at that mean you have to have stamina and stay healthy.
Right?
I can’t believe this horrible film is being praised by some. It’s awful.
It’s nothing, but a film about some has-been/pathological liar, who pretends to be rich. While his wife progressively realizes that she married a loser, who’s costing, her own sanity.
Rorys future is that of a suicide statistic.
The title, makes no sense after watching. The Nest? What Nest? What thriller? What suspense?
What was the point in the two strange occurrences?
This movie was mind numbingly awful, mis-titled, and mis-advertised.
Totally agree, and never have I watched a movie where I don’t like any of the characters!!! Can’t believe critics are praising it !!! ….did they watch it ?
I still don’t get why the horse became unburied
Either she may have thought they bought a horse that was sick snd she wanted an Autopsy?
OR
She was so devastated/ her life falling apart … she loved that horse more then life itself… and wanted to see him ??
I would have liked a better ending? I thought is that it ??
I liked the film though
I loved this film and watched it twice. It’s a drama, not an action flick or horror. No folks, the big ol’ house ain’t haunted. This film is understated brilliance. Jude Law and Carrie Coon act their parts so well. A study of a family where the dad is habitually making himself to be wealthier than he is. Money is everything. Not until the end does he see where his true fortune lies. Even then, he’s crippled by a compulsion and his family corrects and accepts him. The ending is indeed audacious and I loved it. One of the best portrayals of real family life I’ve seen on film.
Yes, I was hoping to get some clarity on the horse. Awful movie. Horrible people, with lives that are such a mess. Wish I hadn’t watched it. Just disturbing and depressing. Why make movies about awful lives?
I stopped watching when I realized I was so unhappy watching it! But I admit to being curious about the ending.
I know. I never got what happened. What did the boy see was amiss with the horse burial? Was it some metaphor? Their true lives were coming to the surface? I want to understand.
Thats not even the half of it,it said it was a horror movie but it was just a stupid movie!!i can’t believe that they even tried to make this movie. Wasted good talent!
Can anyone explain the whole digging up
The horse thing? I feel a bit dumb but I watched it with the misses to try and show her how terrible this movie was and even she didn’t understand the whole horse thing at the end
Good question. I think it’s about Allison reclaiming, or trying to get back to, herself. She loses herself following Rory to the UK, and training horses is her skill. It’s a connection to her old life. Also the horse dies just as Rory’s business deal is starting to crumble, so the horse being buried is a symbol of when everything went wrong (or rather, got even worse). By the very end Allison is still with Rory but not prepared to put up with his stupid ideas any more, she finds her backbone and isn’t backing down. It could also be about how you can’t escape your past though, however well buried you think it is, though that’s maybe a bit on the nose (and it’s Rory trying to escape his origins, not her). If you’ve seen Lady Macbeth (starring Florence Pugh) that also has a badly-buried horse in it so maybe it’s becoming a trope!
The bit about the horse is that Benji saw the horse breathing. So it didn’t die after it was shot. If you remember, it was a deep grave where the who horse body fell into from the tractor. Yhe horse wasn’t visible above the ground. Then when Benjamin was walking outside he saw the horse trying to pull itself up from the grave. So he told mum when she arrived but it was was late.
I loved the movie. But it is so so sad from the perspective of the wife…..
That’s interesting, I didn’t spot it breathing at all! So I suppose both she and Rory are trying to salvage what matters to them that night and fail.
That was our interpretation as well. The horse hadn’t been buried in a pit deep enough, with only a nominal amount of earth on top, which would have been fairly easily displaced if the horse had only been stunned by the gunshot but not killed. If that was the case and it had been trying to work its way to the surface, the guilt Allison felt about not having realised that Richmond was ill was compounded by the greater guilt, realising she’d buried her beloved horse alive, and now it was too late to save the animal even if she’d had the money for the vet.
We liked the movie – gritty and realistic, superbly acted with good cinematography and a lovely absence of muzak of any kind to fill the dialogue gaps – and were only slightly disappointed in the ending. One clever device was that Sam, the one who was going off the rails, became the level-headed adult when it was necessary, taking charge of her younger brother as well as the parents.
People, the horse was NOT buried alive. Ben did not see the horse breathing…that just did not happen.
We started watching this movie, got half way through, decided to read your summary instead. Thank you. It confirmed that it would not be worth wasting another 45 minutes on the movie.
Not a horror movie, just a horrible movie. Boring, trying so hard to be deep. I hate movies that are in my opinion far too obscure to be entertaining. Nothing is really explained, not the door opened when she locked it, not the horse. Although some kind soul on here put me out of my misery and confirmed what I thought. The only horror was for that poor horse. Pretty basic plot that I’ve seen in less pretentious movies. I’ll never get those hours back, that seemed like many. I only got through to the end by sheer obstinacy. ….of course the so called critics loved it because they want to be seen as oh so arty and clever. Personally, it was rotten.
So, despite having been shot in the head the horse didn’t die?! I felt like I’d wasted two hours of my life on this film. The best part was the foreboding music in the introduction.
I think it was dead and it coming back to the surface was something to do with the rain and general horror film vibe.
I was intrigued to see that some people expected this movie to be a horror film – the TV series is, but this movie (although the year at the end of the credits says 2019, it wasn’t released until 2020) is described as a drama, which it is.
The setting being in the Thatcher era, it’s a fairly accurate portrayal of the ethos prevalent at that time: making money was more important than family values, the newly-rich (Rory admits to the cab driver that at one point he’d had a million dollars in his bank account) were striving to get ever richer by whatever means, and trying to build a fortune on blagging and trust games generally didn’t work and led to ultimate financial disaster.
We thought the film was very realistic – but then we both lived through that era…!
It’s actually hard to kill a horse. Their skulls are very thick. Shooting them in the skull is supposed to be humane. At some kill places (glue factories?), they’re not always so humane cuz it’s cheaper to let the horse die an agonizing death. The fact that the horse was buried alive is not as far fetched as it may seem.
I had no idea about this! Thanks for commenting.
I love the fact that Rory never sees the destruction of the house from the party the night before. It’s another symbol of how he never sees the the ugly truths. People in his life clean the mess that he never seems to witness. Gold.
I liked this film. Certainly didn’t think it was a waste of time.
Enjoyed the story line, would have preferred it if it had ended on a happier note but my imagination filled that one in. The spooky theme definitely ran through the film which I enjoyed as caused more suspense.
Jude Law was very good in his role, all actors/actresses were good.
Dissapointing…Total Rubbish…
Will never watch a Director:Sean Dukin movie again 🙁
I’ve just watched the film and enjoyed it very much,,,although I thought the ending was too blunt,,,Certainly not boring for me..,
Completely & utterly miffed as to whether I enjoyed the movie or Just wasted 2 hours of my day. Certainly didn’t see any movement or breathing from the horse, as to whom I thought played the strongest role. I guess it is to revel on real life situations and how a family can unravel upon lies told. Eh who knows, who cares. Little known fact I’ve just learnt about the horse, he was Jon Snows horse from game of thrones.
Awful film, because it goes nowhere and gives you nothing to gain from watching it. If there is any meaning it’s too obscure. Very disappointed!
Feel like I need to defend this film from all the haters on here. Didn’t find it boring or “a waste of time” at all personally. Seemed to me a realistic evisceration of the 80s get rich quick culture, and the Thatcher/Reaganomics of the time, which I vaguely remember growing up. Law is perfectly cast, and Carrie Coon is fascinating. All in all a very well made movie, and I enjoyed it, maybe apart from near the end with the horse, which seemed a bit clumsy and confusing. But just because a film isn’t to your personal taste doesn’t mean “nothing happened” or that it’s a bad film. You just didn’t understand it.
Defending this film as well.
This was an intriguing film which scratched benesth the surface of the images of happy families, the ‘beautiful blonde American wife’ amd the mansion in Surrey. All lies and deception and myth-making.
The final scene with the horse I interpreted as a somewhat heavy-handed metaphor about grief, repression and regret.
Jude Law was excellent in this film.
Definitely worth watching
The horse was buried alive & tried to dig himself out…. As she felt like she was being buried alive.
This was an intriguing film which scratched benesth the surface of the images of happy families, the ‘beautiful blonde American wife’ amd the mansion in Surrey. All lies and deception and myth-making.
The final scene with the horse I interpreted as a somewhat heavy-handed metaphor about grief, repression and regret.
Jude Law was excellent in this film.
Definitely worth watching
Really wasn’t sure about this film. The acting was impeccable but I found some of the characters hard work to like.
I wasn’t sure if this was a thriller- there were hints; the open door (what was they about?) Benjy saying the house scared him, and of course, the music gave a sense of foreboding. But these hints never fully developed.
What did happen with the horse at the end?? I can’t imagine it survived being shot and that fall into the burial ground (ugh, that was a truly grisly scene).
So, it wasn’t strictly a thriller. It was possibly a comment on the 80’s culture. I think I would have liked a little more delving into Jude Law!’s character. He seemed to fall from Grace very abruptly without us seeing the dodgy deals he was trying to pull off.
We understood this movie quite well, and it’s ok to have different opinions on it. I honestly felt this movie was drawn out continuously watching this narcissistic individual ruin his family and life.
I suspect this film only really makes sense if you lived through the eighties and worked in the City (as I did) ; I certainly recognised some of Rory’s anxieties and destructiveness and the fallout regarding his family and friends due to his selfishness etc. I thought the film was quite clever how it dealt with numerous human traits and frailties and making one realise what’s important and what’s not – I think that’s the point of the film
I agree. I wasn’t working in the 80s but I remember how it started as a decade where anyone could (in theory) get ahead but by the end of it the old order had of course reasserted itself. So much of it turned out to be smoke and mirrors, and like you say the impact on families and friends could be significant.
With regard to The Dead Horse, the farmer shot it in the head, he would have checked it was dead and shot it again if need be. It was then picked up by the tractor and would have been very dead to do so..
Also it could not Dig its way out and up from the pit. Because it was DEAD.
I found this page after searching google to discover if Richmond really was dead or not ! I could sworn we saw him breathing in the seen where the son walks out to his grave, of course he’s dead after being shot in the head but I just wanted to double check 🙂
Anyway – I loved this film. It’s certainly not an easy watch but I thought the portrayal of all the characters (kids and parent and supporting cast) was extremely well done. Everything feels authentic. The back-handed remarks at the dinner party, the falling out between Rory and Steve, the big argument between Rory and Alison… it’s all beautifully observed, even if very difficult to watch at time. Alison and Rory are both fascinating characters, I felt utterly absorbed in their story. I rather hope it works out for them in the end ! I like to think that Rory finally saw the error of his ways and took a job as deputy pig-manure shoveller or perhaps a cab driver. That’s how it ends in my mind anyway 🙂