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“Nerve” is a lot like high school: The jocks and pretty people have all the fun before eventually being bailed out of trouble by the nerds who were ceremoniously not included. The nerd in question here is Tommy ( Miles Heizer ), a computer guy who pines for leading lady Vee Delmonico ( Emma Roberts ). Vee is blonde, beautiful and has just been accepted into CalArts. There’s no way in cinematic hell—or actual Hell—that she’d wind up in Tommy’s arms. Yet it’s Tommy to the rescue when Vee gets herself involved in a sinister smartphone game whose online ringmaster sounds suspiciously like Stephen Hawking .

A brief history of the film reveals that it started out as a popular young adult novel by Jeanne Ryan . I haven’t read the book, but I have seen the "Simpsons" episode where Homer is willing to degrade himself for money. The rules of “Nerve” are very similar. This underground game has two modes, player and watcher. Players are given “dares” by watchers. Upon completion of the dares, which are recorded by the player and other watchers, cash is immediately deposited into the player’s account. The more dangerous the dare, the more money one can make. If a player fails, or bails out of the dare, their game is over and they forfeit all their dough. If a player freaks out, and gets law enforcement involved, the street adage “snitches gets stitches” is quite rudely demonstrated.

“Nerve” wants to be a cautionary tale about the perils of desiring fame through social media, but it isn’t willing to go to the darker depths this material requires. It opts to stay on a more superficial and very goofy level, and while that has its enjoyable charms, it pretty much negates the film’s message. Repercussions are mere afterthoughts here. The ABC Afterschool Specials of my youth, as cheesy as they were, seem more dangerous. The hardened cynic in me was hoping for something akin to Eli Roth making a horror movie about "Pokemon Go." But then again, I am not the target audience for “Nerve." Part of me screamed for this film to get off my lawn, but an even bigger part of me succumbed to playing by its rules. “Nerve” is too much fun to stay mad at for long.

The film is most effective when it’s portraying the dynamics of its teenaged universe. Screenwriter Jessica Sharzer provides enough space for the actors to flesh out and inhabit their standard teen-movie trope characters, and it’s easy to identify with whatever type you were in high school. The interplay between the main characters feels true to life. For example, Vee starts playing “Nerve” as a means to escape the shadow of her more popular friend, Sydney ( Emily Meade , very good here). They have a complicated relationship that the film, to its credit, takes time to explore. Like most teenagers, Vee and Sydney want to be popular, and in today’s world, that requires going viral in some online fashion.

Sydney is one of the top players of "Nerve," and is in line to “win” the game by becoming its number one player. Competing for this title is Ty ( Machine Gun Kelly ) who will do anything to win, and Ian ( Dave Franco ) the dreamboat whose meet cute with Vee involves her kissing him as her first Nerve dare. The anonymous watchers controlling the game think Ian and Vee make a nice couple, so they’re sent on dares that include trying on expensive clothing at a ritzy Manhattan store and driving a motorcycle 60mph down a Manhattan street while blindfolded. Meanwhile, Ty executes a dangerous stunt that recalls the R-rated Disney film from 1993, "The Program," and the tragic real-life copycat accident that forced Disney to cut the scene in question from that film.

Crazy stunts aside, the camera loves Roberts and Franco, who have massive amounts of onscreen chemistry whether alone or together. The most amusing example is a scene where the duo, dressed only in their skivvies for reasons too complicated to explain, escape into the temporary safe haven of a store elevator. As the camera lingers on Franco’s sculpted abs, one can’t help but think, “How many Big Macs did he forgo to obtain that shit?” However, “Nerve” treats them as more than eye candy; their quickly drawn relationship yields some credible moments of affection. When things start to get shady, it’s easy to believe that Ian might consider losing the game to the young lady he’s suddenly smitten by, even if the cost is a bit too high to pay.

And when things do get shady, Tommy is there to be Vee’s potential savior. His abstinence from Nerve is due to his knowledge that the game takes every iota of information about players from the internet and uses it for nefarious purposes (kinda like Facebook does, but I digress). As in "Snakes on a Plane," the filmmakers throw some love toward geeky computer dudes like me by having Tommy use his technical smarts in heroic fashion. Assisting him is a top hacker who is refreshingly played by a woman of color, Samira Wiley from "Orange Is the New Black."

“Nerve” ends on a note that one can either take as a major sigh of relief or cop-out. I chose the latter, but to be honest, the ridiculous ending is “Nerve”’s one true moment of absolute ballsiness. Add that to some fine performances (including Juliette Lewis as Vee’s Mom) and the glossy sheen provided by cinematographer Michael Simmonds and you have a nice, pleasant little summertime diversion on your hands.

Odie Henderson

Odie "Odienator" Henderson has spent over 33 years working in Information Technology. He runs the blogs Big Media Vandalism and Tales of Odienary Madness. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Nerve (2016)

Rated PG-13 for thematic material involving dangerous and risky behavior, some sexual content, language, drug content, drinking and nudity-all involving teens.

Emma Roberts as Vee

Miles Heizer as Tommy

Dave Franco as Ian

Machine Gun Kelly as Ty

Emily Meade as Sydney

Samira Wiley as Hacker Kween

Juliette Lewis as Nancy

Henry Joost
Ariel Schulman

Writer (novel)

Jeanne Ryan
Jessica Sharzer

Cinematographer

Michael Simmonds
Madeleine Gavin
Jeff McEvoy
Rob Simonsen

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Film Review: ‘Nerve’

A propulsive thriller about a most dangerous game folds a few sharp observations on the Internet era into a youth-movie ride.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

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In “ Nerve ,” a dark-heart-of-the-Internet thriller made with a glib pop-up glow, Vee ( Emma Roberts ), a high school senior in Staten Island who’s the straightest girl in her clique (though she’s cool enough to know her Wu-Tang by heart), gets sucked up into a sinister competition that emerges out of the deep web. It’s a game called Nerve that operates through a smartphone app — though it could just as well have been devised by a savvy TV producer who loved “Fear Factor” and “The Hunger Games” and ordered up a show that was a cross between them.

In the movie, anyone who makes the perilous click to play Nerve chooses to be in one of two groups: players or watchers. The players are the bold ones who act out a series of dares, which start off as innocuous (jumping onto a motorcycle with a leader-of-the-pack stranger) and then head toward the shiveringly dangerous (don’t-look-down heights are a favorite motif). The players receive money for each dare, but more than that, they rack up followers. They get to know that they’re loved. The watchers, by contrast, are the passive drone/fans sitting on the sidelines. But they’re also the ones controlling the whole thing. They think up the dares and become a live audience for them on their phones and computers, choosing to follow this or that player. Are we not entertained?

At “Nerve,” we are entertained (sort of), by a concoction that’s basically a B-movie scavenger hunt with a soupcon of “relevance.” It’s like an update of the 1997 David Fincher thriller “The Game,” only with an ominous hint of this is where the world is heading! that feels more like “The Purge.” “Nerve,” let’s be clear, isn’t a movie to take seriously, yet its fast lunge at topicality — the way it uses the contest at its center as a lightning-rod metaphor for how young adults interact in the digital age — is part of what’s fun about it. The film was co-directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, who made the highly resonant and manipulative 2010 documentary “Catfish” (about the way that people use fake alter egos on-line). “Nerve,” which is both thin and exciting, contrived and provocative, is staged as a chain of logistical observations about on-line culture in the age of Snapchat and Instagram, when people put their entire lives on display, and what isn’t shown is being data-minded. The movie is cautionary sociology turned into an ominously propulsive youth-movie ride.

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Emma Roberts, with her big dark eyes and toothpaste-commercial smile, is often compared to her movie-star aunt (Julia Roberts), but in “Nerve,” she’s got a chatty awareness that makes her seem more like the little sister of Anne Hathaway. As a lead actress, she’s vividly compelling: vivacious and a little abashed, an oasis of radiant sanity within a group of kids who are all twitchy nerve endings. The film opens with an ingenious sequence in which Vee, on her laptop, connects with her wild-girl best friend, Syd (Emily Meade), amid a sea of on-line bells and whistles. It’s really the film’s announcement of its theme, which is that in the digital age, “one-on-one” communication is just another piece of entertainment, another virtual stimulant. No wonder things need to get daring.

The movie captures how in an all-computer-all-the-time era, it’s inevitable — indeed, almost evolutionary — that people will be driven to seek out some way to be audaciously physical, to be out in the world and there . The players act out the hidden desires of the watchers: a symbiosis of thrill-seeking at once real and vicarious. But Vee, a photographer who just wants her mom (Juliette Lewis) to allow her to attend the California Institute of the Arts, has more romantic inclinations. She’s got a secret crush on J.P (Brian Marc), a star jock, and when the anything-goes Syd approaches him in front of a crowd on her friend’s behalf, the result of this badly misjudged transaction sends Vee into a spiral of humiliation.

How bad a spiral? So bad that she enters a “What the hell” zone that suddenly leads her to sign up on Nerve as a player. It’s not really too plausible — but hey, it’s the movie’s whole damn premise, so why fight it? Vee’s first official dare is to visit a diner and kiss a stranger for five seconds, and once she gets there she sets her sights on Ian ( Dave Franco ), whose face is buried behind a paperback copy of “To the Lighthouse.” That turns out to be no coincidence. On Facebook, Vee had listed Virginia Woolf’s novel as her all-time favorite. The game is already parsing her tastes! Reading her mind! The follow-up dare involves her pairing off with Ian, who choppers her into Manhattan, where the two stop off at Bergdorf Goodman and — next dare — she tries on a skimpy couture dress that looks like it was made out of a crushed emerald-green Christmas ornament. Then their clothes get stolen (which turns out to be the dare of someone else). They scamper out of the department store in their underwear, and from there things just get sketchier.

Which is how we want them to go. “Nerve” takes a moment to recover from a flagrantly ridiculous sequence in which Ian, on his motorcycle (with Vee as designated driver), tries to hit a speed of 60 miles per hour in Manhattan while blindfolded. But that’s a rare instance of fake badassery. Dave Franco, with a buzzcut that brings his features into focus, comes off as a less moonstruck, more vulnerable version of his brother James. He and Roberts find a romantic connection that threads its way through the movie, and stays there even when Vee is walking on a ladder lodged between apartment windows twelve stories above ground. Joost and Schulman do a terrific job of staging this vertiginous sequence. It works as the ultimate bad dream of peer pressure — the notion that this is how far someone will go to please her followers. In “Nerve,” the rule of the Internet mob is all-powerful: You want something because everyone else wants it, and their will becomes yours, a dynamic that can leave your very identity hanging in the air.

The cinematography, by Michael Simmonds, is sharply angled and glowing and alive, with a haphazard touch of YouTube visual flash. But there’s nothing very spontaneous about the conspiratorial doom that drives the action forward. As the game of Nerve goes on, the watchers egg on the players, who are all too eager to become stars, but really they’re sacrificial lambs. At certain points, watchers will conveniently pop up along the streets, strategically placed to broadcast what’s happening through their phones and action cameras, an image of all-eyes-on-you paranoia that may produce a shrug of “Yeah, right.” “Nerve” is a comic-book vision of how the Internet has become a gladiatorial arena of voyeurism. But the movie, like the game it’s about, is hard to stop watching, even when you know it’s playing you.

Reviewed at Magno, New York, July 25, 2016. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 96 MIN.

Production: A Lionsgate release of an Allison Shearmur, Keep Your Head production. Producers: Allison Shearmur, Anthony Katagas. Executive producer: Jeanne Ryan. Co-producers: Charles Miller, Orlee-Rose Strauss, Stephen Meinen.
Crew: Directors: Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman. Writer: Jessica Sharzer. Camera (color, widescreen): Michael Simmonds. Editors: Jeff McEvoy, Madeleine Gavin.
With: Emma Roberts, Dave Franco, Juliette Lewis, Emily Meade, Miles Heizer, Brian Marc, Kimiko Glenn, Samira Wiley, Colson Baker, Marc John Jefferies.

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Common sense media reviewers.

Kindness rewarded in shallow but fun teen cyberthriller.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Teens who are thoughtful, kind, and responsible ar

Main character Vee is a mostly responsible teen wh

Many scenes of teens performing dangerous stunts:

A teen cheerleader exposes her naked bottom during

Uses, both typed and spoken, of "s--t,"

Teens regularly use real websites and services: Fa

Teens smoking (possibly pot?) and drinking (from p

Positive Messages

Teens who are thoughtful, kind, and responsible are rewarded, while mob mentality, internet trolling, peer pressure, etc., are clearly condemned. That said, a few scenes of teen partying (drinking, etc.) briefly glamorize the behavior; danger, lying to parents, etc. are also glamorized.

Positive Role Models

Main character Vee is a mostly responsible teen who tries to do the right thing, but she succumbs to a moment of weakness involving greed and vanity. Ultimately, though her better side prevails.

Violence & Scariness

Many scenes of teens performing dangerous stunts: Some are hurt, shown falling, jumping through fire, etc. Motorcycle racing through traffic. Some uses of guns/shooting.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

A teen cheerleader exposes her naked bottom during a game. More than one scene of teen kissing, making out, etc. Teen boy and girl are in their underwear for a long scene. Some innuendo and sex talk.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Uses, both typed and spoken, of "s--t," "ass," "hell," "ass," "damn," "bitch," "d--k," "douchebag," and more. At least one written use of the word "f--k" spelled out with asterisks.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Teens regularly use real websites and services: Facebook, Huffington Post, Amazon, Spotify, etc. Constant use of iPhones, smartphones, etc.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Teens smoking (possibly pot?) and drinking (from plastic cups) at a party, playing beer pong, etc. A teen girl appears to be drunk. Reference to "getting high."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Nerve is a teen thriller about a popular online video game (with some parallels to Pokemon Go ) that can become dangerous. There are lots of scenes of teens (played by actors in their twenties) performing dangerous and/or thrilling stunts; some fail and get hurt. Guns are also shown, with some shooting. Teens kiss and make out, and sex is talked about. A cheerleader exposes her naked bottom at a school football game. Teens are shown drinking from plastic cups and briefly smoking (possibly pot?) at a party. The characters also use popular real-life websites/services/devices including Facebook, Spotify, and Huffington Post, as well as iPhones and other smartphones. Strong language includes "s--t," "ass," and "bitch." Despite the edgy material, the movie has a core message about being kind and responsible, and not falling prey to mob mentality or internet trolling. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

Parents say (8)
Kids say (62)

Based on 8 parent reviews

What's the Story?

NERVE tells the story of high school yearbook photographer Vee ( Emma Roberts ). After her older brother's death, Vee lives life in a safe zone, rarely taking any chances -- unlike her sexy, outgoing best friend, Syd ( Emily Meade ). Syd tells Vee about an online game called Nerve , in which users can choose to "watch" or "play" through a series of dares. After a particularly humiliating day, Vee decides to play. This instantly sends her on an odyssey across New York City, unexpectedly teamed up with the cool, kind Ian ( Dave Franco ). As the dares get bigger and bigger, Vee finds everything spinning out of control; the night leads up to a deadly face-off with a ruthless player known as Ty ( Colson Baker , a.k.a. rapper Machine Gun Kelly).

Is It Any Good?

This lightweight thriller for the new millennium is flashy, with decent, likable characters and adrenaline-fueled thrills, even if it grows ever more implausible and ultimately disposable. Yet it does offer a spectacular condemnation of mob mentality and internet trolling, instead clearly rewarding kindness and responsibility. Co-directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman previously brought us the internet dating scam story Catfish , as well as the surveillance camera-powered Paranormal Activity 3 and 4 , and they sure seem to have their fingers on the pulse of ... something.

Nerve effectively captures the feel of a movement or a trend (it sort of recalls Pokemon Go ) in a New York City setting, as well as the adrenaline of an all-night romp. The filmmakers keep a strong storytelling pace, blowing right past several small plot problems and careless shortcuts without a thought. And the casting is spot-on; the chemistry between Roberts and Franco certainly helps carry the story along.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Nerve 's violence . How intense is it? How does the risk of danger impact the level of the thrills? What's the impact of media violence on kids?

What's the appeal of an online game like Nerve ? Is it the promise of fame? The voyeuristic quality of watching? How does it compare to real-life games (or shows)?

How does the game use the concept of mob mentality? What happens to large groups of people, and how do they make decisions? How does the main character prevail over this type of thinking?

What's the best way for teens to stay safe online ? When should families start to talk about online responsibility?

How does the movie portray drinking and drug use ? Is substance use glamorized ? Are there any real-life consequences? Why is that important?

Movie Details

In theaters : July 27, 2016
On DVD or streaming : October 25, 2016
Cast : Emma Roberts , Dave Franco , Emily Meade
Directors : Henry Joost , Ariel Schulman
Inclusion Information : Female actors
Studio : Lionsgate
Genre : Thriller
Topics : High School
Run time : 96 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : thematic material involving dangerous and risky behavior, some sexual content, language, drug content, drinking and nudity-all involving teens
Last updated : March 25, 2024

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‘nerve’: film review.

Emma Roberts and Dave Franco star in this teen thriller set in a mysterious online community.

By Justin Lowe

Justin Lowe

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Web platforms and smartphone apps are evolving so quickly that a game like Nerve seems like it might be available for download already. Combining live video-streaming functions and social media features, the fictional mobile application aggregates online communities of “watchers” who interact with “players” competing for cash by completing challenges that are originated by participants over a 24-hour period.

Described as “a game like Truth or Dare, minus the truth,” Nerve appears to have the potential to thrive on both the anonymity of online trolling and the widespread quest for instant celebrity. Risky and deceptive online behavior probably emerged soon after popular adoption of the internet, although broader recognition followed the release of films like Nerve co-directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman’s noted 2010 low-budget documentary Catfish .

Release date: Jul 27, 2016

With its attractive young cast and a multiplatform media campaign, Nerve won’t need to rely on going viral to find its audience, but it’s unlikely to be trending for long once viewers digest its simplistically cautionary message.

The issue partly is the filmmakers’ muddled social-engineering perspective that almost instantly transforms a teen with fairly average online habits into an impulsive daredevil with the mere adoption of a new app. Shy, responsible Staten Island high school senior Venus “Vee” Delmonico ( Emma Roberts ) has been comfortable living her life in the shadow of her much more outgoing best friend Sydney (Emily Meade), until Sydney challenges Vee to live a little for a change. Ignoring her university acceptance letter to art school and joining the Nerve community, where “watchers pay to watch and players play to win cash and glory” by accepting and completing dares that are broadcast to Nerve participants on the players’ smartphones, Vee meets Ian ( Dave Franco ) after targeting him on her first challenge to kiss a stranger in public for five seconds and win $100.

Not coincidentally, Ian also is a player, and the online watchers quickly pair them up to ride his motorcycle into Manhattan, where they complete a series of tasks that brings them escalating payouts into the thousands of dollars and sparks the possibility of romance (while getting Vee an unusual tattoo in the process). Vee begins to question her impulsiveness once it becomes obvious that the app has extracted an alarming amount of information from her digital footprint that may be putting her friends and family at risk in all-too-tangible ways, as well as her own personal safety.

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Nerve: demonstrates the ubiquity of cellphones among teens

Nerve review – teen thriller warns of the perils of online celebrity

Until it falls apart in the heavy-handed third act, this is a smart and visually sizzling movie about a livestreamed game with sinister consequences

N erve, the teen thriller from the directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, warns of the seductive rush of adrenaline from questionable sources. It’s a cautionary tale about the illusory nature of false celebrity, but it serves the double function of commenting on itself. Audiences must keep their guards up, because the first two-thirds of this movie are such giddy, delirious fun one might run the risk of falling for its absolutely asinine third act. Luckily, the pros slightly edge out the cons to make this perils-of-the-dark-web story appealing, and potentially a breakout success for the junior high set.

Venus (Emma Roberts, 25 years old but playing 17) is weeks away from graduating high school, and unsure if she should follow her passions and attend an art school in California or continue to live at home in Staten Island with her single and clingy mother (Juliette Lewis). Venus’s best pal, Sydney (Emily Meade), is a bit of a firecracker, and dabbles in a new underground internet game called Nerve. Using Periscope -like video streaming, Nerve participants take dare requests from an unseen peanut gallery of “watchers”. They are gifted deposits directly to their bank accounts (once someone signs up for Nerve, their entire digital footprint is swallowed into its scattered servers) and gain prestige through fans and followers.

Sydney and Venus have a fight and, in an effort to prove she isn’t a stick-in-the-mud, Venus decides to play they game herself. At first it is innocuous. Her first challenge is to go to a diner and kiss a stranger. Turns out the (very cute!) boy she picks, Ian (Dave Franco), is a player himself, and he ends up serenading the outer borough rubes with a Roy Orbison tune.

Joost and Schulman have ample visual sizzle, making even a tacky, neon-lit diner look sexy now that Venus is coming out of her shell. Soon Venus is on the back of Ian’s motorcycle heading into Manhattan, with her pals watching along on their smartphones. Their first stop is Bergdorf Goodman, in which the pair must try on expensive clothes. Frumpy Emma Roberts slips on a gorgeous spangly green gown and soon she isn’t just visiting Emerald City, she’s wearing it.

Hijinks ensue that involve Venus and Ian running around to pop music, then zooming through the New York streets. The farther down the rabbit hole they go, the more Venus becomes aware that the entire young population of the city is turned on to Nerve. Suddenly she’s got fans at every stop on their adventure (which just happens to include many of New York’s more photo-ready locations). The more the film shakes reality, the more energetic it becomes, with its groovy hi-tech aesthetic evoking The Warriors meets Tron .

It’s rare when you can pinpoint the exact moment a movie goes off the rails, but when Nerve downshifts from far-fetched parable into idiotic action, the film at least has the decency to speed itself along to get to the ending. The message about the dangers of peer pressure ceases to stay under the surface and erupts to the top once our characters get (pause for effect) in too deep. Venus, the voice of reason against a mob mentality looking for lulz, chastises her tormenters, asking: “You think that takes nerve ?” The “that” in question is a secret ballot vote for someone to die in some sort of enormous gladiatorial ring that hides in plain sight near the Verrazano Bridge.

Points, though, to Joost and Schulman for bringing quite a bit of cinematic sparkle to what could have been a dull story. (Anyone remember the Selena Gomez vehicle Getaway ? Probably not, and its story wasn’t that different, but with no eye toward design, the film was as dull as cold oatmeal.) Nerve finds nifty ways to fill the frame, an increasingly difficult task as more and more teen thrillers consist of kids tapping at laptops and staring at phones. There’s also a striking use of the look and functionality of the first-generation iMac as some sort of nostalgia kitsch, which may make some of us chuckle, but those first translucent blue computers are actually as old as the characters in this movie are supposed to be.

Moreover, it’s no surprise the creators of Catfish would have a sharp eye for how young people use technology. While the ending devolves into pure hacker stupidity, the earlier sequences highlight the ubiquity of cellphones to a degree rarely seen in movies, but often seen with teens in real life. Now if the movie only explained how they got their batteries to stay alive despite broadcasting video all night.

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Nerve Reviews

Some will love this, some will nitpick it, its entertaining for what it is but forgettable

Full Review | Aug 7, 2023

By the time the story reaches its climax practically all logic is out the window.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 24, 2022

A neon-drenched thrill ride with a pair of really engaging lead performances by Roberts and Franco. It's a shame it falls apart in the ridiculous third act because the rest of the film is legitimately really fun

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 9, 2022

A fast and fizzy thriller about social media, peer pressure and smartphone addiction.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 9, 2021

Almost really good. Too bad co-directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman didn't have the nerve to continue with the dark tone all the way to the end credits.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 4, 2021

Just as they did with 2010 "documentary" Catfish, directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman delivered another timely and terrifying film six years later.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Feb 24, 2021

I can't say I didn't have fun in this movie.

Full Review | May 5, 2020

It made me want someone better to make this movie.

Coupled with an exceptional soundtrack, the many script misgivings are generally easy to forgive in exchange for the cinematic energy on display.

Full Review | Mar 31, 2020

Boasts charming leads and unexpectedly have more thought to say.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 30, 2018

Nerve loses its way towards the end, but it's slickly done, inventive, and will press all the right keys for its teen and twentysomething target audience.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 23, 2018

Even though it isn't the most well-written movie of the year or anything, the movie's primary demographic of teenagers might actually take away something useful regarding how their Internet behavior affects people in the real world

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 5, 2017

Had Nerve stuck to the intrigue around online games, it could have been an efficiently entertaining piece of cinema.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Nov 20, 2017

Emma Roberts (usually seen as the mean girl) makes for a relatable, reclusive teen. Dave Franco is all smiles and charm; you want to go on this dangerous ride with him.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 6, 2017

Nerveplays more as a survival-of-the-fittest lesson - a Darwinism-fueled cautionary tale for the GoPro generation.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 5, 2017

Nerve is really good.... The dnouement is a bit too clever for its own good but its point about the dangers of online anonymity is bang-on.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 19, 2017

The plausibility of its scenario gives "Nerve" an unexpected edge.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 15, 2017

It's a scary world and it feels way too close for comfort.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 4, 2017

There's enough humor to elevate the script above total idiocy. And as with Schulman and Joost's fake documentary, you'll always be wondering what's going to happen next, even if you're a little embarrassed for doing so.

Full Review | Jan 2, 2017

It's preposterous but propulsive and never less than compelling in its perception of current digital culture and the craving for instant fame wrought by reality TV.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 1, 2017

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DVD & Streaming
Action/Adventure

Content Caution

In Theaters

July 27, 2016
Emma Roberts as Vee; Dave Franco as Ian; Emily Meade as Sydney; Miles Heizer as Tommy; Machine Gun Kelly as Ty; Juliette Lewis as Nancy

Home Release Date

October 25, 2016
Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman

Distributor

Movie review.

Venus Delmonico isn’t a popular girl.

Oh, sure, she certainly has an exotic name. But few people would see her as anything other than shy and awkward. She’s the kind of person who’s easily overlooked. Maybe that’s why everybody in high school just calls her Vee.

That’s if they call her anything at all.

Vee’s friend Sydney, however, is definitely the noticeable sort. In fact, she does all she can to stand out and to grab as much attention as possible. That’s the main reason she was one of the first kids in school to start playing the trendy new game Nerve. Think of it as sort of an Internet-streaming version of truth or dare—only without the truth part.

In this game, you’re either a Player or a Watcher. An anonymous online group sets up outrageous challenges, and Players who accept and succeed at the dares get paid. Watchers simply pay to see all the craziness unfold via any given smartphone in the vicinity. The bigger the risk, the bigger the payoff and the bigger the online crowd.

Which, of course, is why Syd is always a Player. She’s addicted to the attention she gets. She relishes her growing throng of followers. Loves the online spotlight. So maybe that’s why she and Vee get along so well. Syd can wow her audience, and Vee never gets in the way.

The truth is, though, down deep, Vee has always wanted to do at least a little wowing of her own. She’s an introvert, sure, but when you’re always the one standing in the wings, that gets old. Just once she’d like to take a brief walk out on the big stage, too.

So when Syd berates her friend for, once again, never taking the smallest of chances, Vee decides it’s time. She’ll step up. She’ll sign onto that stupid Nerve game herself. She’ll accept a dare and see where it leads. So there!

What Vee doesn’t realize, however, is that Nerve is more than it seems. When someone let’s this “game” into their computer, into their world, it takes things. It gathers all the crumbs from cookies that players have left in their online travels. It watches from every camera and every passing phone.

And before you can say “stolen identity” the people behind the game have dredged up Vee’s bank accounts. Her passwords. They raid her Facebook page and know her likes, her fears, her desires.

They know exactly what kind of guy she would go for— someone they surreptitiously connect her with through a series of carefully orchestrated dares. He’s a fellow Player (though she doesn’t know that immediately) named Ian. They also know just the amount of adrenaline it will take to get her hooked, to propel Vee from one simple dare to the next bigger one.

And so the money comes in. The passing Nerve fans cheer. Before you know it, a very popular new online girl named Vee is all in.

Positive Elements

Nerve suggests that following through on Internet dares and seeking out online notoriety can be dangerous and foolhardy. However, it ultimately rewards those who “game the game” in equally foolish and dangerous ways.

Though a deceptive pretense lurks behind Ian’s initial connection with Vee, he eventually comes to care for her and is willing to sacrifice for her wellbeing.

Spiritual Elements

Sexual content.

During a public dare, Syd lifts up the back of her cheerleading outfit to reveal the she isn’t wearing any underwear. The camera lingers on her naked backside. Later, a form-fitting T-shirt reveals that Syd is still traveling underwear-free. We also see Syd straddling and making out with a guy in bed. (Both are clothed). Vee publically shames Syd, stating that she regularly welcomes a “revolving door of guys” in her room.

Vee’s first dare involves kissing a stranger for five seconds, which she does. For her part, Vee doesn’t know that her smooch with Ian is actually a setup. Later, after a night of joint dares, the two kiss passionately. Vee is also challenged to try on a very expensive dress, and the camera watches as she strips to her underwear (as online watchers post lude comments in response). Then she and Ian are both forced to run off in their skivvies when their clothes and wallets are stolen.

Several young women wear outfits that showcase cleavage or bare midriffs. There’s discussion about a Nerve dare that involved a naked player, peanut butter and a pet dog. A brief online image shows a girl’s bare backside being slapped.

Violent Content

Several scenes glamourize young people doing risky, reckless things, such as jumping off cliffs, walking on a ladder suspended between two buildings and being pulled behind a car on a skateboard. We watch as Vee navigates for a blindfolded Ian—who’s trying to reach 60 mph on a motorcycle in traffic. Elsewhere, a guy lays in the middle of railroad tracks as a train screams by above him.

Some of these stunts go awry, thumping players in painful-looking ways. And in one case, a guy hanging from a crane falls to an offscreen death.

A big guy punches Vee in the face, knocking her out and leaving her with a gash under her eye. Several teens wave handguns around at one point as a crowd prompts them to shoot each other. One pulls the trigger and another appears to die.

Crude or Profane Language

A half dozen s-words join several uses each of “a–,” “h—” and “b–ch.” “Oh my god!” is exclaimed a dozen times. Several people use obscene hand gestures. We see a censored f-word on a bumper sticker.

Drug and Alcohol Content

A large group of high school teens drink and smoke at a party. Syd gets drunk before wobbling out to attempt a particularly dangerous dare.

Other Negative Elements

Vee’s mom appears powerless and feckless in her response to her daughter’s increasingly perilous choices. Syd follows through on a dare where she has to pass gas on a number of strangers. Other dares range from eating dogfood to trying to steal from a police officer. Ian steals a motorcycle.

Vee is clearly a fan of the problematic rap band the Wu-Tang Clan, going so far as to rap along with one of the band’s songs when it’s played.

Ah, the Internet. What a tangled web it weaves. And what a tangled relationship we have with it.

On one hand, we’ve come to depend upon—and even take for granted—the Internet’s almost magical ability to instantaneously provide virtually any information we’re searching for. And for those who want to leverage this medium into cyber-stardom, the World Wide Web tantalizingly tempts otherwise average folks to believe that they can become household names. All it takes is a properly placed camera, enough eyeballs watching and enough thumbs clicking a “like” button.

On the other hand, we fear that that mysterious network of people and servers might someday hack into our lives and steal everything we hold dear. And that feat doesn’t require anything except someone knowing you’re out there.

Nerve, based on a 2012 young adult novel by Jeanne Ryan, plays on that love/hate relationship with the Internet. It tells a tale of pretty young things who are willing to risk life and limb for a splash of cash and dash of celebrity in their otherwise ordinary lives. And there’s just enough subtext beneath its kids-on-a-digital-dare veneer to keep watchers of the Watchers involved and hoping for a thought-provoking assessment of these contemporary concerns by film’s end.

Alas, Nerve loses its own before reaching any wise conclusions. The movie simply runs out of steam, out of time and out of ideas. Instead of a cautionary commentary, what we’re left with is a collection of pretty people doing reckless stuff while baring just enough skin to attract young viewers but sneak under the R-rated threshold.

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

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Nerve: a flawed but insightful film about the perils of social media

Lecturer in American Literature, University of Liverpool

Disclosure statement

Will Slocombe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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“Truth or Dare but without the Truth.” This scary tagline sums up Nerve, a social media game that drives the film of the same name. We follow 17-year-old Vee’s immersion in the game, where “players” earn money for completing dares to kiss strangers or shoplift $4,000 dresses. As you’d expect, the dares quickly escalate with the vicarious demands of the “watchers” (gamers who pay for the privilege of watching rather than taking part) – riding a motorcycle blindfolded at 60mph, for example. What emerges is a series of somewhat trite, but nonetheless pertinent, observations on social media and the politics of celebrity and voyeurism.

Nerve is the latest offering from Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman – and, like their earlier Catfish (2010), it explores the ways in which the internet doesn’t always promote the best in human behaviour.

Games impinging on real life is an idea that seems all-too appropriate given the current Pokémon Go craze, the augmented reality game that has people walking around the country staring at their mobile devices trying to catch imaginary beasts. And, accordingly, Nerve has been variously been described as “ a dark thriller for the Pokémon Go generation ”, “ a technothriller for Pokémon Go generation ”, and as a “ YA thriller about what happens when Pokémon Go turns evil ”.

But this comparison raises some interesting issues. Such headlines seem to assume a few things, primarily that Pokémon Go has a “generation”. Given Nerve’s 15 rating, this presupposes that such a “generation” is comprised of 15-18 year-olds, when part of the appeal of Pokémon Go appears to be that anyone can play it, from pre-teens up to 20-something fans of the initial Pokémon series and beyond. In fact, Nerve is more akin to an alternate reality game than an augmented reality game, in the sense that the game invades and manipulates your life – indeed, is your life – rather than transposing digital images over the real world.

Nerve feels like a cross between something like the Jackass series and movies, in which people who should know better do stupid things for the amusement of the viewing public; Hackers (1995), in which a group of teenagers get embroiled in a cyber-virus plot; and the awful remake of Dangerous Liaisons, Cruel Intentions (1999), in which teenagers screw each other over for fun (you could easily see shades of Wargames (1983) and the Brat Pack movies of the 1980s in the film too).

From these parallels, it should be obvious that Nerve is an unashamedly teen movie – and the film suffers from the usual problems of the genre: coming-of-age story plus boy-meets-girl plus teens know everything and adults are clueless plus implausible plot.

Despite this, Nerve foregrounds some issues around technology in a far more relatable way than some other recent films that engage with similar themes. Surrogates (2009) imagined a world in which people use surrogate bodies, leading to a loss of human interaction. Gamer (2009) had people’s bodies being puppeted by players in violent shoot-‘em-up games and nightmarish day-glo social media worlds. eXistenZ (1999) asked questions about how virtual reality games blur the boundary between real and fiction. The Running Man (1987) and Death Race (2008) imagine death and destruction as part of public entertainment.

Nerve brings all these various threads together, highlighting the potential dangers of social media. It queries whether anonymity can absolve you of responsibility (no); whether you should do reckless or dangerous things in order to be popular, in response to peer-pressure, or for money (no); whether you should allow an app complete access to your digital footprint and banking details (no).

As such, Nerve seems concerned about the ways in which people who believe that they are playing a game fail to think about consequences and the ramifications of what happens if games and social media infiltrate society to the point that we all become merely avatars and anonymous usernames.

At one point, the male love interest declares that there is a third way of engaging with the game, beyond the initial option to be a player or a watcher — that of “prisoner”. As the film astutely demonstrates, neither players nor watchers are active – but passive, both controlled by the game. In this way, everyone who plays the game is a “prisoner” in actuality, encouraged to conform to the rules of the game and the systemic logic it propagates.

The only way to really beat a game is not to play, otherwise the game is the only thing that wins: the film argues that stepping outside the game is what takes real nerve. Nerve, for all its faults, is a timely reminder of the perils of social conformity in an increasingly online world.

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Nerve Review

Never delivers the full potential of its concept..

Although fun and very almost fun at times, the majority of Nerve feels ham-fisted, contrived and limp. There’s a great idea here and an important message, but it fails to live up to its promise or deliver on the full potential of its concept in almost every way.

More Reviews by Simon Thompson

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Tiffanyyong.com

Nerve (2016) Movie Review

Nerve Movie Review | by tiffanyyong.com

Recommended audience: emma roberts, dave franco, emily meade, miles heizer, juliette lewis, kimiko glenn, henry joost, ariel schulman and thriller movie fans.

Nerve Movie Synopsis

Nerve Viewer Rating: 4/5 ****

Nerve movie review:.

Do You Know?

This was the second time Emma Roberts and Dave Franco acted together. Their first collaboration was for music video “Go Outside” by Cults.

Behind The Scenes and Interviews

Check out Nerve Movie Official Website and Facebook Page ! Nerve Movie is out in (Singapore) cinemas on 11 August 2016.

1/2 of #TheEpiphanyDuplet, Tiffany Yong juggles her ABCs – Acting, Blogging and Coaching/Consulting as she is fuelled by passion and drive to succeed.

It is not easy to make a living in Singapore just purely based on Acting, so with Blogging to help her with her online presence, and Coaching kids drama, private tutoring and freelance social media consulting to finance her life, she is currently leading the life most people hope to have: Living the Dream!

8 thoughts on “Nerve (2016) Movie Review”

Pingback: Blair Witch (2016) Movie Review | Tiffanyyong.com

This movie sounds relative to people. That know-it-all feeling people get after seeing the storyline sometimes not true. For me, I’d prefer to see the movie before making my conclusion.

It’s a great concept and you’re absolutely right, the timing is perfect especially since people have changed the way they use social media these days. I would love to watch this, I think it’s worth it.

Dare Game just got serious!

ScRyif this haooens in real life. Teens and yound adults are naive at times

Relevant movie for this game crazy world I guess. It is quite interesting to watch. Thinking of watching…

I can’t believe there are Pokemon Go related crimes in Singapore. Interesting you pointed out that that riding blindfolded was already done in another film, I thought that was really crazy and impossible in real life.

This seems like a very timely movie. I don`t play Pokemon Go but I would like to see this film.

This looks like a nice movie to watch. I would like to see the dares they had to do and how they were able to surpass it.

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Nerve film review: A flawed but insightful look at the perils of social media

What emerges is a series of somewhat trite, but nonetheless pertinent, observations on social media and the politics of celebrity and voyeurism, article bookmarked.

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“Truth or Dare but without the Truth.” This scary tagline sums up Nerve , a social media game that drives the film of the same name. We follow 17-year-old Vee’s immersion in the game, where “players” earn money for completing dares to kiss strangers or shoplift $4,000 dresses. As you would expect, the dares quickly escalate with the vicarious demands of the “watchers” (gamers who pay for the privilege of watching rather than taking part) – riding a motorcycle blindfolded at 60mph, for example. What emerges is a series of somewhat trite, but nonetheless pertinent, observations on social media and the politics of celebrity and voyeurism.

Games impinging on real life is an idea that seems all-too appropriate given the current Pokémon Go craze, the augmented reality game that has people walking throughout the country staring at their mobile devices trying to catch imaginary beasts. And, accordingly, Nerve has been variously described as “a dark thriller for the Pokémon Go generation”, “a technothriller for Pokémon Go generation”, and as a “YA thriller about what happens when Pokémon Go turns evil”.

But this comparison raises some interesting issues. Such headlines seem to assume a few things, primarily that Pokémon Go has a “generation”. Given Nerve ’s 15 rating, this presupposes that such a “generation” is comprised of 15-18 year-olds, when part of the appeal of Pokémon Go appears to be that anyone can play it, from pre-teens up to 20-something fans of the initial Pokémon series and beyond. Nerve is more akin to an alternate reality game than an augmented reality game, in the sense that the game invades and manipulates your life – indeed, is your life – rather than transposing digital images over the real world.

Nerve feels like a cross between the Jackass series and movies, in which people who should know better do stupid things for the amusement of the viewing public; Hackers (1995), in which a group of teenagers get embroiled in a cyber-virus plot; and Cruel Intentions (1999), the awful remake of Dangerous Liaisons , in which teenagers screw each other over for fun (you could easily see shades of Wargames (1983) and the Brat Pack movies of the 1980s in the film too).

Despite this, Nerve foregrounds some issues about technology in a far more relatable way than some other recent films that engage with similar themes. Surrogates (2009) imagined a world in which people use surrogate bodies, leading to a loss of human interaction. Gamer (2009) had people’s bodies being puppeted by players in violent shoot-‘em-up games and nightmarish day-glo social media worlds. eXistenZ (1999) asked questions about how virtual reality games blur the boundary between real and fiction. The Running Man (1987) and Death Race (2008) imagine death and destruction as part of public entertainment.

Nerve brings all these various threads together, highlighting the potential dangers of social media. It queries whether anonymity can absolve you of responsibility (no); whether you should do reckless or dangerous things to be popular, in response to peer-pressure, or for money (no); whether you should allow an app complete access to your digital footprint and banking details (no).

As such, Nerve seems concerned about the ways in which people who believe that they are playing a game fail to think about the consequences and ramifications if games and social media infiltrate society to the point that we all become merely avatars and anonymous usernames.

The only way to really beat a game is not to play, otherwise the game is the only thing that wins: the film argues that stepping outside the game is what takes real nerve. Nerve , for all its faults, is a timely reminder of the perils of social conformity in an increasingly online world.

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‘Nerve’ Dares To Examine The Thrills Of Social Media (Movie Review)

Emma Roberts stars as Vee (short for Venus), a smart high school senior who is brought into the world of Nerve. Neve is an online game that challenges players to a series of dares, while others watch. The rules are a mix of clever ideas and vague understandings of how things could actually work, but just take it on faith that Vee gets it and winds up in New York City with Ian ( Dave Franco ), a fellow player.

The film is not above having Vee question the nature of a game like this and supplies the audience with some recognition of characters aware enough to wonder why anyone would do anything like this. Fortunately, there are some decently handled means of getting the characters to the places and points of absurdity required of them for the narrative to basically work. It is only when the film arrives at the third act that an appreciation for seeing a game like this in action comes at some ridiculous costs.

For whatever reason, while it is one thing to see a game like this take place, a film has to provide some kind of cinematic challenge to the authority and get to the proverbial man behind the curtain. I could have done with a lot less of Vee’s friends struggling to find the truth behind Nerve and launch into tech talk about the dark internet and back channels that help reveal who is behind everything. Obviously the film needs to have some sort of climax, but more ambiguity concerning the central conceit would have been welcome.

Nerve works best when it focuses on the adventures of Roberts and Franco, who both appear to be having fun with each other and in their involvements concerning the various stunts they pull. Definitely keeping in mind the audience this film is intended for, Joost and Schulman have the right kind of eye that calls to mind something like the Crank films, but with a lot more neon and alternative rock/electronic soundtrack choices. This is a very uncrowded New York, save for all the kids with phones (that rarely, if ever, need to be charged, despite watching streaming video all day). That is certainly an aspect that shows how stylized the film is, but it helps keep the focus alive.

Clearly the film has plenty to say concerning social media, but the smart play is to have the filmmakers and the characters really seem to understand what that sort of obsession (or whatever one calls it) means. While Sharzer’s screenplay doesn’t allow for too much insightful thought in its final minutes, as people are too busy making grand statements, the work done before easily highlights the drive many (mainly millennials and younger) seem to have about gaining followers and seeking viral internet fame. It may be taken to an extreme based on the premise of this film and Vee’s interactions with her Nerve-obsessed best friend Sydney ( Emily Meade ), but the attitudes feel authentic.

The film also works for wanting to be fun and exciting, without going to dark extremes. Yes, stakes get to a life or death point, as far as certain reveals near the end, but the film was clearly made to engage a younger audience. Whether or not that audience takes away any sort of epiphany concerning the nature of technology is a different point, but there is certainly something to be said for a movie that comments on what the intended audience is so heavily involved with already. There is also the risk of the film dating itself pretty easily, but as far as enjoying the film on a ‘right here, right now’ level, Nerve does enough to succeed.

Enjoy the film for what it manages to pull off. Have a good time witnessing the chemistry between Roberts and Franco. Dig the sense of style and understanding of high school kids through the lens of the filmmakers. Nerve uses the power of escapism to depict a possible reality as far as the future of social media is concerned and makes that a mostly enjoyable feature.

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Nerve (2016) Movie Review

From the directors of a Paranormal Activity 3 and 4 comes Nerve , a teenage drama trying to capture The Hunger Game ‘s lucrative audience. At first glimpse, the movie doesn’t really sound like a must watch. There are no big stars (sorry Dave Franco fans), the directors haven’t worked on anything good, and the premise behind it sounds completely nuts. But I think this movie will end up surprising a lot of people. Before we continue, a quick piece advice to anyone planning to watch: don’t watch the trailers, as they pretty much spoil the entire flick.

Nerve is a video game that brings The Hunger Games to our world. Gamers pick to be watchers or players; watchers pay to watch their favorite players, and the money is pooled and used to pay the players on completing more and more insane dares. The watchers vote amongst themselves to decide what the next dare should be, and at their disposal is the social media accounts of the players. From there they can pick out dares relating to their players’ greatest fears and pit friends against each other.

We follow a shy high school senior named Venus who’s looking to take more risks in her life, and after being pushed by her friend Sydney, she joins Nerve as a player. Dave Franco’s character Ian is another player in Nerve and joins up with Venus.

The movie provides a look at problems with privacy in the current world and the harmful internet culture built from anonymity. Even the watchers’ conversations sound like something straight out of 4chan. More than all of that, the movie is all about some good old teenage drama.

Nerve-movie-promo-picture-Emma-Roberts-and-Dave-Franco

All of the usual teenage drama is stuffed in this film. There’s the love triangle, friendships being tested, and of course people sleeping with each other’s crushes. All of the above is, surprisingly, handled pretty well. Character motivations make sense, and it’s hard to point to one character as being in the wrong. Maybe it’s just the years of unrealistic teenage movies where every character fits into a trope and becomes a caricature of that trope, but the movie constantly surprised me in its handling of its characters.

One of the other things that surprised me about this movie was how well the technology was handled. The opening scene, shot from the perspective of a teenage girl’s Macbook, was slick and not as cringey as these things tend to be. Things like Tor, the dark web, botnets, and more were actually used realistically and not as magical ways to explain problems away. Even the game Nerve itself made sense as something that could exist in the real world. It reminded me a bit of Mr. Robot, a hacker show which also handles technology realistically. It makes me pretty glad to see more and more accurate representations of technology in media. Long gone are the days 1995’s Hackers and detectives yelling at computer screens to enhance JPEGS.

Overall, the movie reminds me of another Dave Franco movie, Now You See Me from 2013. It was a low budget movie that came out of nowhere and actually ended up surprising a lot of people. Just like that movie, Nerve isn’t perfect. The ending is rushed, and the more you think about it, the less sense it makes. But overall the flick is very entertaining, the cast is great, and it’s a fun watch for everyone.

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There is an app called double dog that you can play a game similar to Nerve in real life!

Here: http://doubledogapp.com

It’s a fun film and doesn’t try to be more than it is. However…The lines, “someone is sending me money.” “White people problems.” I have a serious issue with that crap. If I was Black then my college would’ve been paid for. Since I’m white and poor I get nothing except loads of debt. African Americans account for 13.2% of the population. Why do they get all the goods for education? And closing I have many black friends as well as gay and what not. I don’t care what you are, I care who you are. We’re getting screwed. Oh and way to keep marijuana on the same level as heroine. No wonder states are talking of seceding from the Union. Idiots = US Government. I love America but you don’t make it easy.

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Nerve Parent Guide

There must be a better way for a girl to work up the nerve she needs to get some attention and tell her mom she wants to leave home for college.

A high school student (Emma Roberts) gets caught in a virtual game that has dangerous effects on her reality.

Release date July 27, 2016

Run Time: 96 minutes

Official Movie Site

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The guide to our grades, parent movie review by rod gustafson.

In our narcissistic world there is a litany of ways for each of us to get our few minutes of fame. The problem is, our drive to be “someone” may lead to doing things that expose us to great risk—and this is particularly true for adolescents. Peer pressure isn’t new, but the addition of smartphones with streaming-everywhere video adds an entirely new way create those moments in the spotlight. In Nerve , we see this scenario played out in a manner that may or may not leave its target audience with a desire to keep their egos in check.

Vee and Sydney (Emma Roberts, Emily Meade) are oil and water high school friends. The former keeps a low profile at school and volunteers as a yearbook photographer. Her timid nature extends to being unable to confess to her mom that she’d like to go to school away from home. On the other extreme is Sydney, a senior who runs with the popular crowd and seeks out daring desires. When a trending online app, titled Nerve, is introduced into their social sphere, Sydney is quick to take full advantage of the opportunity. It also has the potential of fracturing her relationship with Vee.

The dares grow in danger and complexity, and the funds paid out escalate as well—if the tasks are performed successfully. Sydney gets $100 after displaying her naked derrière under her cheerleading costume at a football game. (We also see the full moon.) Although she gets suspended from school, that’s an insignificant price to pay for someone determined to lead the pack of players in the game. Still, Sydney feels an intense desire to push boring Vee into being more adventurous too and her goading eventually leads the risk-adverse girl to press the “Player” button. What follows is a night of reckless antics with a virtual crowd cheering on alarming behavior and pitting these two pals against each other.

I squirmed during much of this film as I watched these teen characters make increasingly bad and, ultimately, life-threatening decisions. When Vee accepts her first assignment to go to a local restaurant and kiss a stranger for five seconds, she meets Ian (Dave Franco). It turns out he is playing too. After Ian completes his dare of singing and dancing, he convinces the pretty blonde to say yes to the next proposition, which is hoping on his motorcycle and heading into Manhattan. But these relatively benign, initial pranks soon turn into stunts that leave the pair running through the streets in their underwear, riding a motorcycle at highway speeds while blindfolded and crossing a ladder perched between two tall buildings. Other participants are seen taking part in escapades that include lying flat between rail tracks as a freight train passes overhead, hanging from high structures, leaping over flames and trying to jump subway lines.

From a purely filmmaking perspective, Nerve presents one of the more unique and engaging teen-targeted movies I’ve seen in some time. However, my parental instincts had me hanging onto the edge of my seat. How many of the young people in the theater with me were comprehending the possible long-term consequences of what they were seeing? With a screenplay that flirts with fire, the only hope it has of avoiding being branded as irresponsible would be to provide some significant life lessons about peer-pressure, social momentum, disconnection from reality and on-line safety. Unfortunately, few adolescences would pay good money to sit through such a lecture, so the script falls short of delivering those strong messages.

Aside from the primary issue of dangerous depictions that could easily be mimicked by viewers, the film also portrays minors drinking and smoking (likely an illegal substance), and implies sexual promiscuity. The neatly tied up conclusion might be interpreted to mean that death-defying frivolity is just what’s needed to experience positive personal growth. As well, characters benefit from all of this naughtiness. The good-girl wins the love interest of the bad-boy. (It’s kind of like Grease with smartphones.) Sydney gains respect for the sanctity of friendship. And the Vee’s nerdy best friend Tommy (Miles Heizer) scores credit points after his hacking skills help save the night.

At the end of this tense rollercoaster ride, all that I can say is there must be a better way for a girl work up the nerve she needs to get some attention and tell her mom she wants to leave home for college.

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Rod Gustafson

Nerve rating & content info.

Why is Nerve rated PG-13? Nerve is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for thematic material involving dangerous and risky behavior, some sexual content, language, drug content, drinking and nudity-all involving teens.

Violence: Characters accept dares and engage in silly, rash and dangerous pranks. Their behavior is fueled by self-esteem issues, peer pressure, blackmail and threats of personal harm. Characters watch these perilous activities with a sense of detachment from reality. Some of the watchers try to persuade participants to stop, but most of them encourage the irresponsible and/or hazardous stunts. These risks include reckless driving, lying under a moving freight train, hanging from bridges and trying to jump over subway tracks or bonfires. One scene depicts characters on a motorcycle speeding down city streets while the driver is blindfolded. Characters are punched, kidnapped, briefly held prisoner and coerced into engaging in a gladiator-style gunfight. Blood is seen when a character gets a tattoo and when an injury is shown. The loss of a loved one is mentioned. Computer hacking and other illegal web activities are glamorized. A computer program accesses a person’s personal information, including bank accounts. Characters steal and lie.

Sexual Content: A full shot of buttock nudity is seen briefly, as well as in an extended scene where a cheerleader flips up her skirt to reveal her bare backside. A teen boy and girl are shown in their underwear and run through a public place. Teen characters talk about sleeping around. A clothed, teen couple is shown lying on one another in bed while kissing passionately. Other teen couples embrace and kiss. Flatulence is depicted. The script includes sexual references, innuendo and crude terms for anatomy.

Language: Two sexual finger gestures are shown, along with a sticker that spells out a strong sexual expletive, but has some of the letters bleeped out. Some moderate and mild profanities, scatological slang and terms of deity are used. Name-calling is heard

Alcohol / Drug Use: Teenagers drink alcohol at a party and drunkenness is depicted. A teen character smokes (it is unclear if it is a tobacco or marijuana). Others talk about getting high.

Page last updated July 17, 2017

Nerve Parents' Guide

How does Vee get talked into doing more and more dangerous things? Despite saying she will get out if she feels uncomfortable, what factors contribute to her staying in the game? How might you be influenced by flattery, peer pressure, anger, pride and praise? What would you be willing to do for money?

Many of the watchers in the movie seem to forget that they are looking at real people putting themselves in harm’s way. Why might this disconnection occur? Does it ever happen to you when you are watching events on TV or other screens? What can you do to become more sensitive to real world issues?

In real life Emma Roberts, Emily Meade and Dave Franco are older than the characters they portray. (Emma is about 25, Emily 27 and Dave 31.) How might this affect the way you see them when they are engaging in activities which are illegal for teens – such as drinking at the party, or consenting to getting a tattoo?

The most recent home video release of Nerve movie is October 25, 2016. Here are some details…

Home Video Notes: Nerve Release Date: 25 October 2016 Nerve releases to home video (Blu-ray/DVD/Digital Copy) with the following extras: - Watcher Mode (“Creating Nerve”- 15 Character Pods: “The Fat Jewish Gets Tattewish” Outtakes; and “The Governor’s Ball Takeover” – Social Media Stars in a Game of Dare) - Player Mode (“Do You Have the Nerve?” Game; “Are You a Watcher or a Player?” Quiz; and Player Profiles)

Movie Review: Nerve

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Kelly Maguigan , Meg Aldstadt , Michael McGuire; Movie Review: Nerve. Mental Health Clinician 1 June 2013; 2 (12): 419. doi: https://doi.org/10.9740/mhc.n153897

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Nerve : Josh Biggs is a silent sufferer living with social anxiety disorder (SAD). His co-worker, Aurora, recognizes this and recruits Josh to take part in her graduate thesis, titled “Social Anxiety in Dating Initiation.” She believes that she can help Josh overcome his anxiety through exposure-based therapy, and gives him the first of several assignments: receive thirty rejections in one day. Josh struggles with Aurora's tasks at first, and it is very clear that he harbors a fear of intimacy--he avoids forming relationships with other people because he believes they will label him as unworthy once they know him. So he assumes a quiet, agreeable persona that does not engage with others. For example, Josh does not confront his roommate for cocaine use, even though he disapproves, and remains silent as the roommate harasses him for eating peanut butter straight from the jar. Any confrontation would result in a panic attack which he describes as “feeling like I'm dying.”

Josh realizes that he has a problem, and is willing (with Aurora's help) to change. With each task, we can see that he is trying to break out of his shell by going above and beyond her directions. After receiving thirty rejections, she instructs him to begin talking with people he would not normally speak to, strangers he encounters during the day. He responds by befriending homeless individuals, inviting them to live with him, and taking care of them.

We begin to see Josh develop boldness through these encounters--he starts taking dares, speaking out, and defending his opinions. When Aurora separates from her boyfriend, also a former patient, Josh starts to visit her apartment frequently, eventually staying overnight. He finally confesses his love for her, saying that she is his cure. He believes that he would not have been able to express these feelings a month ago without her help. Unfortunately, Aurora is still upset about her ex-boyfriend, and rejects Josh.

As tension builds between doctor and patient, life at Josh's apartment also becomes increasingly stressful. His new roommates are unemployed and do not contribute to the rent, which leaves him with total responsibility. His boldness escalates to aggression very rapidly as his anxiety increases. In one instance, he assaults a man for cutting in front of him in a restaurant line and is jailed. But while he is more aggressive, he also becomes detached and isolated. His performance at work suffers, and he is terminated. Josh enters a downward spiral, and begins drinking regularly. His dares become dangerous—for example, hanging off of his apartment's balcony for money. Exposure-based therapy has allowed him to voice his thoughts, but it is clear that other issues, as well as suicidal tendencies, have surfaced. Aurora senses this, but when she prompts him about his life and childhood, he reveals he has gaps in his memory and cannot talk about it.

As the movie comes to an ugly end, we are left with pervasive feelings of uncertainty regarding Josh's future. Aurora reconciles with her boyfriend, Josh and his roommates are evicted from the apartment, and he begins a new life, homeless and unemployed. He has failed to overcome his dysfunction.

Nerve is an excellent portrayal of social anxiety disorder. The protagonist captures the hallmark characteristics of social anxiety disorder. These symptoms include persistent fear of social situations, scrutiny from others, and complete avoidance or withdrawal in circumstances that are potentially threatening. When Josh was forced to endure, he often suffered from heart palpitations and debilitating panic attacks. His anxiety is not substance-related, and he recognizes that the disorder is negatively impacting his quality of life.

Anxiety disorders respond to cognitive strategies and pharmacotherapy, but Nerve does not present any current, accepted treatment options. Instead, Aurora hurries Josh through some experiments with her thesis deadline as the goal. It is not reasonable to expect an individual to improve in such a short period of time. We believe that she actually harms Josh more than she helps him. While the movie's representation of treatment options fails, it does demonstrate the complexity of Josh's disorder. It realistically shows the impact of inappropriate treatment, as opposed to giving the viewer a cinematic ending where he improves regardless of the quality of therapy.

Nerve is an obscure film which adequately portrays the signs and symptoms of social anxiety disorder, as well as the hazard of treating it too casually. This movie makes one appreciate the complexity of human anxiety, its sources, and thought disorders that can arise as a result. It leaves a bitter taste in the mouth, but could potentially be used for educational purposes in a more advanced application.

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'Civil War' is a hackneyed portrait of war correspondents in the thick of it

A still from director Alex Garland's film "Civil War." (Courtesy A24)

What we’ve got here is failure to communicate. Writer-director Alex Garland’s “Civil War” begins with a provocative — some might even say incendiary — scenario that the film has no interest in explaining. At an unspecified time in what looks to be the very near future, the U.S. has been torn apart by a war between loyalists to an unnamed, despot president in his third term (Nick Offerman) and a secessionist militia called the Western Forces, which improbably has enough air support and infrastructure to knock the world’s most massive military operation back on its heels. (Even more improbably, we’re told that the insurrectionists are an alliance between Texas and California. I’d love to hear more about how that’s supposed to work.) But all the reasoning and logistics behind “Civil War” are brushed aside as if beside the point — it’s a movie about an ideological conflict in which ideologies are never discussed — in favor of a jittery, hackneyed portrait of four war correspondents in the thick of it.

Nick Offerman in "Civil War." (Courtesy A24)

Kirsten Dunst stars as Lee, a hard-boiled photojournalist trying to get to Washington D.C. in time to watch the White House fall. She’s accompanied by a swaggering, hotshot Reuters reporter (the hugely charismatic Wagner Moura) and a kindly, aging writer played by the great Stephen McKinley Henderson, who works for “what’s left of the New York Times.” Along the way they pick up Jessie (“ Priscilla ” herself, Cailee Spaeny), an aspiring shutterbug who looks up to Lee like a rock star and shoots on an old Nikon film camera, developing the negatives herself in the field. The road to Washington will leave no cliché unturned, wanly replaying familiar scenes from far better films about adrenaline-junkie journalists trying to do their jobs in war zones, such as Peter Weir’s “The Year of Living Dangerously,” Oliver Stone’s “Salvador” and Michael Winterbottom’s “Welcome to Sarajevo.”

Garland has a clunky way of summarizing what scenes are supposed to be about in his dialogue, instead of actually, like, dramatizing them. For example, we can tell that Lee’s being extra hard on Jessie because the kid reminds her of her younger self thanks to Henderson taking Dunst aside and saying: “You’re being extra hard on her because she reminds you of yourself.” (Subtext is for cowards.) “Civil War” often feels like the actors are reading aloud from an outline instead of a script. Everyone’s given a single note to play — all archetypes in lieu of people. This is the dullest performance I’ve ever seen from the normally electrifying Dunst, who sulks through every scene with such grim, Debbie Downer determination she might as well be Carey Mulligan. The only vivid impression is made by Moura, maybe because the stock character of the hard-drinking, rock ‘n’ roll journalist is inherently more fun than the rest of these mopes. (When he struts around saying gunfire gets him hard, I couldn’t help wishing Moura had played Freddie Mercury.)

From left: Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura and Cailee Spaeny in "Civil War." (Courtesy A24)

Feints to topicality aside, “Civil War” is just another action movie trafficking in old combat photographer tropes that were stale when Don Johnson playacted them in the music video for his hit single “Heartbeat” back in 1986. What’s exasperating is how cynically Garland contorts his storytelling in order to avoid implicating any potential audience members, indulging popular rightwing fantasies about armed insurrection and lefty fears of imperial presidencies while remaining as vague and noncommittal as possible about the reasons for the war we’re watching. Garland wants to play with firecrackers without setting them off. The movie manages to be exploitative while lacking the nerve of an exploitation picture.

Neither political party is mentioned in the film, nor is any religion — which for a film about violent conflict in the United States is basically insane. Instead, we hear cagey mentions of stuff like “the Antifa massacre,” allowing the audience room to assume who did the massacring according to whatever biases we’ve brought into the theater. Some critics call this clever. I think it’s pretty cowardly. Amid the tedium, I couldn’t help wondering what a genuine provocateur like “Dragged Across Concrete” director S. Craig Zahler might have made from this material. But then he probably wouldn’t have gotten a $50 million budget and IMAX bookings. The extent of this film’s moral and political sophistication was perhaps best summed up 33 years ago by statesman and philosopher W. Axl Rose when he asked, “What’s so civil about war, anyway?”

Cailee Spaeny and Kirsten Dunst in "Civil War." (Courtesy A24)

There is one great scene, in which our reporters are waylaid by camo-suited psychos led by Dunst’s real-life hubby Jesse Plemons wearing red novelty sunglasses. They’re a rogue Y’all Qaeda faction out committing war crimes in the heartland, and Plemons — basically reprising his role as the slow-witted sociopath from TV’s “Breaking Bad” — gets the film’s scariest moment, deciding who gets to call themselves an American from behind the barrel of a gun. (Notably, it’s the only instance of racism in this otherwise “-ism”-free affair.) The eerie use of silence and an empty truck call to mind Garland’s terrific 2018 “Annihilation,” which turned depression into an insidious alien terror. The large-scale action sequences in “Civil War” are technically impressive, if monotonous. He’s a much more gifted director of unsettling and uncanny images, like a quaint, apple pie Americana town with armed snipers lining the rooftops.

At least I assume they were snipers. I couldn’t actually see them because at a public preview screening earlier this week, the AMC Boston Common projected “Civil War” cropped to the wrong aspect ratio, hacking off crucial picture information from the top and bottom of the frame. After 15 years of botched press screenings at the city’s sloppiest venue, I’ve become resigned to such incompetence. Still, I felt sorry for the guys I talked to afterward who had paid $22 plus Fandango fees to watch a mangled movie. This town is blessed with some beautiful theaters that have excellent projection, and if you want to see the whole picture you need to choose wisely where you go.

“Civil War” is now in theaters.

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Screen Rant

The long game review: a high-energy sports movie that is a tribute to texas, golf, & friendship.

Following the true story of a Mexican-American Texas golf team in the 1950s, The Long Game uplifts the audience but doesn't shy away from reality.

The Long Game truthfully portrays the camaraderie of young Mexican-American golfers in 1950s Del Rio.
The film's fast-paced narrative keeps the story moving, although character relationships are not fully explored.
While lacking in character depth, The Long Game balances serious themes of racism with the joy of golf and friendship.

The Long Game has the difficult job of maintaining the integrity of true events and people while creating a concise and well-balanced narrative. It takes place 1950s Del Rio, Texas and follows a group of young Mexican-American highschoolers who form a golf team and compete against the all-white teams that dominated the sport at the time. At the heart of the story is JB Peña, a World War II veteran and school superintendent who will stop at nothing to get the boys and himself recognized and respected as part of the golf community.

JB Peña and his wife moved to the small town of Del Rio, TX. When JB is rejected by a country club on the basis of his skin color, he's devastated. But his world soon collides with a group of young Latino golf caddies who work there, and JB is inspired by the handmade course the boys built to teach themselves golf.

The Long Game truthfully tells its story
The film's strengths lies in the camaraderie of JB and his friends
The Long Game tells a well-balanced story
The character relationships aren't fully explored
There's an overall lack of character development

Julio Quintana helms the film as the director, and there's never any doubt that he has a clear vision for the film's trajectory.

Like many of the best sports movies based on real-life events , The Long Game is aware of the strengths and weaknesses of its genre. There is heavy material woven through the story, and the serious instances of violence and racism are treated delicately. However, The Long Game has no intentions of being a morality tale and is most concerned with the hard work and joy the characters find through each other and the game of golf. Julio Quintana helms the film as the director, and there's never any doubt that he has a clear vision for the film's trajectory.

Fast Pacing & High Energy Keeps The Long Game's Story Moving

The film rarely drags or lingers on a scene.

From the first shot, The Long Game jumps off the screen, practically begging us to leap off the couch and join in on the fun. The central group of boys is boisterous, though they have a deep affection for each other. Their dynamic, in the beginning, is endearing, and this sense of friendship and belonging within their group is an enduring aspect of the movie. Quintana understands youthful exuberance well, but the subdued resignation of JB (Jay Hernandez) is just as compelling. From the start, the audience understands that golf is more than a game to JB, it's acceptance.

While the movie is about much more than golf, the story misses the opportunity to use the game to its fullest potential as a metaphor.

Golf might be some people's favorite sport, but for many, the nuances of the game and the skills demonstrated onscreen will be lost on them. However, The Long Game grasps this and uses it to its advantage. Almost every tournament is portrayed through montage, with the film only slowing down to show particularly pivotal moments. This has its pros and cons, as it means the game of golf never has the chance to be viewed as boring by the audience, but also that none of the games carry enormous weight within the narrative.

While the movie is about much more than golf, the story misses the opportunity to use the game to its fullest potential as a metaphor. There are scenes that The Long Game gives ample time to while whizzing through dramatic climaxes between central characters. Character motivations can get lost in the story's pace, namely with Joe (Julian Works) and Frank (Dennis Quaid), the two characters who serve as foils to JB and round out the narrative. They're strong-willed and compelling men, but their internal struggles aren't clear enough. Not to mention that Joe's friends and teammates are overlooked.

The Long Game (2024)

There is an undercurrent of patriotism and militaristic pride throughout the film. While The Long Game actively grapples with what it means to be Mexican-American and how Mexicans were and still are treated as second-class citizens simply because they're not white, there is a sense that every character is proud of their country and to be American. The film is decidedly apolitical, and there's ultimately no requirement for the movie to take a stance. It's not the job of The Long Game to make a statement, and the parallels between the military and team sports mirror each other nicely.

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Though the characters are underdeveloped, the emotional impact is strong, few of the characters are fully explored, but the ending provides an uplifting climax.

Though The Long Game is just under two hours, we never get the opportunity to fully know the characters. There are hints of deeper issues that signal the characters have fully formed lives, but these moments never get more than a scene or two to develop. Some of the most egregious omissions of character development are in Lucy Peña (Jaina Lee Ortiz), JB's wife, and Daniela Torres (Paulina Chávez), Joe's girlfriend. They have definitive traits and independent desires, but they are viewed only through their connection to the men in their lives.

From the first shot, The Long Game jumps off the screen, practically begging us to leap off the couch and join in on the fun.

The three characters who are given the most time to evolve and grow, Joe, JB, and Frank, are still relative mysteries by the end of the film. One of the most compelling dynamics is that between Joe and his father, but it's explored very little onscreen. This illustrates the biggest issue with The Long Game; it attempts to tackle too much and loses strong character work in the process. In this way, the momentum of the film betrays itself. Though some energy might have been lost in exploring these relationships, it would have benefited the story.

However, the inherent universality of the narrative gives the plot strong highs and lows despite not knowing too much about the characters. If anything, it's a testament to what the film accomplishes that there's a desire to spend more time with the story. Similar to the lack of character development, questions about generational divides and assimilation are only mildly touched upon. In this way, The Long Game doesn’t push itself far enough, but ultimately, it successfully and truthfully tells the story it set out to tell and has fun along the way.

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COMMENTS

Nerve movie review & film summary (2016)
The more dangerous the dare, the more money one can make. If a player fails, or bails out of the dare, their game is over and they forfeit all their dough. If a player freaks out, and gets law enforcement involved, the street adage "snitches gets stitches" is quite rudely demonstrated. "Nerve" wants to be a cautionary tale about the ...
Nerve (2016 film)
Nerve is a 2016 American techno-thriller adventure film directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman and written by Jessica Sharzer, based on the 2012 novel of the same name by Jeanne Ryan. The film stars Emma Roberts, Dave Franco, and Juliette Lewis, and revolves around an online truth or dare game, which allows people to enlist as "players" or "watchers" and as the game progresses, the players ...
Nerve
Movie Info. Industrious high school senior Vee Delmonico (Emma Roberts) is tired of living life on the sidelines. Pressured by her friends, Vee decides to join Nerve, a popular online game that ...
Nerve (2016)
Synopsis. Venus "Vee" Delmonico (Emma Roberts) is a high school senior living on Staten Island. She surfs the web and gets a Facebook notification from her crush, J.P. (Brian Marc), who tagged her in a photo that she took. Vee gets a Skype chat invitation from her friend Sydney (Emily Meade).
Film Review: 'Nerve'
Editors: Jeff McEvoy, Madeleine Gavin. With: Emma Roberts, Dave Franco, Juliette Lewis, Emily Meade, Miles Heizer, Brian Marc, Kimiko Glenn, Samira Wiley, Colson Baker, Marc John Jefferies. A ...
Nerve review
There's a genuine spark between Emma Roberts and Dave Franco, playing Vee and Ian, two strangers who find themselves paired in a game of dare called Nerve. Anonymous online watchers set ...
Nerve (2016)
Nerve: Directed by Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman. With Emma Roberts, Dave Franco, Emily Meade, Miles Heizer. A high school senior finds herself immersed in an online game of truth or dare, where her every move starts to become manipulated by an anonymous community of "watchers."
Nerve Movie Review
NERVE tells the story of high school yearbook photographer Vee (Emma Roberts).After her older brother's death, Vee lives life in a safe zone, rarely taking any chances -- unlike her sexy, outgoing best friend, Syd (Emily Meade).Syd tells Vee about an online game called Nerve, in which users can choose to "watch" or "play" through a series of dares.
Emma Roberts in 'Nerve': Film Review
The issue partly is the filmmakers' muddled social-engineering perspective that almost instantly transforms a teen with fairly average online habits into an impulsive daredevil with the mere ...
Nerve review
Using Periscope-like video streaming, Nerve participants take dare requests from an unseen peanut gallery of "watchers". They are gifted deposits directly to their bank accounts (once someone ...
Nerve
Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 24, 2022. Joe Lipsett Hazel & Katniss & Harry & Starr Podcast. A neon-drenched thrill ride with a pair of really engaging lead performances by Roberts and ...
Nerve
Positive Elements. Nerve suggests that following through on Internet dares and seeking out online notoriety can be dangerous and foolhardy. However, it ultimately rewards those who "game the game" in equally foolish and dangerous ways. Though a deceptive pretense lurks behind Ian's initial connection with Vee, he eventually comes to care for her and is willing to sacrifice for her wellbeing.
Nerve: a flawed but insightful film about the perils of social media
Published: August 12, 2016 8:54am EDT. "Truth or Dare but without the Truth.". This scary tagline sums up Nerve, a social media game that drives the film of the same name. We follow 17-year ...
Nerve Review
Nerve is based on a novel from 2012, which will seem like a lifetime ago to the target audience, and it already feels as dated as an iPhone 5 - it's not even an iPhone 5S. It will probably age ...
Nerve Movie (2016) Review
Nerve Movie Review: This film was released at a perfect timing. Any sooner, this might seem as an over the top film. But with the release of the location-based augmented reality game Pokémon Go and it becoming a worldwide phenomenon , the excitement and the nerve-wrecking dangers of Nerve had become real and relevant. In fact, there are many ...
Nerve
The ingenious story of two youngsters and their games of 'dare'
Nerve film review: A flawed but insightful look at the perils of social
This scary tagline sums up Nerve, a social media game that drives the film of the same name. We follow 17-year-old Vee's immersion in the game, where "players" earn money for completing ...
'Nerve' Dares To Examine The Thrills Of Social Media (Movie Review)
July 27th, 2016 by Aaron Neuwirth. The central idea of Nerve is one that sounds both ridiculous and completely accurate, based on the society of today. Directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman (of Catfish fame) have taken a script by Jessica Sharzer, adapted from a YA novel by Jeanne Ryan and developed a high school kids-focused thriller that ...
Nerve (2016) Movie Review
From the directors of a Paranormal Activity 3 and 4 comes Nerve, a teenage drama trying to capture The Hunger Game's lucrative audience. At first glimpse, the movie doesn't really sound…
Nerve Movie Review for Parents
Why is Nerve rated PG-13? The PG-13 rating is for thematic material involving dangerous and risky behavior, some sexual content, language, drug content, drinking and nudity-all involving teens. Latest news about Nerve, starring Emma Roberts, Juliette Lewis, Dave Franco and directed by Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman.
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Movie Review: Nerve
movie review, Nerve. Nerve: Josh Biggs is a silent sufferer living with social anxiety disorder (SAD). His co-worker, Aurora, recognizes this and recruits Josh to take part in her graduate thesis, titled "Social Anxiety in Dating Initiation.". She believes that she can help Josh overcome his anxiety through exposure-based therapy, and gives ...
Nerve (2016)
4/10. feels like a kids film. valleyjohn 6 November 2016. Nerve is about an unadventurous girl who decides to take part in an online game that involves completing challenges and dares to increase her popularity and add to her bank balance but as you would expect not everything goes to plan.
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Reviewed at Magno, New York, July 25, 2016. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 96 MIN.

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