Movie Review: All About Nina

All About Nina *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Eva Vives.

Written by: Eva Vives.

Starring: Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Nina Geld), Common (Rafe), Chace Crawford (Joe), Camryn Manheim (Debora), Jay Mohr (Mike), Mindy Sterling (Amy), Angelique Cabral (Carrie), Clea DuVall (Paula), Kate del Castillo (Lake), Beau Bridges (Larry Michaels). 

 

I’m not quite sure why it seems like Hollywood has never quite known what to do with Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Almost every time I see her in a movie – or TV show – she is fantastic, and yet it seems like we don’t see her enough – and when we do see her, like in the brilliant, blistering performance she delivers in All About Nina, no one seems to notice. So I guess you can add this to her excellent work in Smashed or the third season of Fargo or 10 Cloverfield Lane – as another excellent performance by one of Hollywood’s most talented, but underutilized actresses.

 

Her character in All About Nina is a mess – if the Amy Schumer movie hadn’t already used the title Trainwreck, it would have been appropriate here – Schumer’s character in that movie has it all together compared to Nina here. She is a New York standup comic – who has an angry, aggressive persona on stage (one of the things I don’t know is if we’re supposed to find her normal standup funny or not – I didn’t really, although I think Winstead delivers the material brilliantly). After years in New York, she decides to head to L.A. – she tells herself it’s to audition for Comedy Prime (a SNL clone) – but it’s at least as much to get away from Joe (Chace Crawford), the married cop who hits her that she is currently fucking. To call him a boyfriend would be too generous – Nina says she never has never had a boyfriend, and you believe her.

 

When she gets to L.A., there is a little bit of culture shock. She moves in with what could be a L.A. cliché – a Mexican American writer or New Age mumbo jumbo, who talks about her “energy” and has healing parties in her backyard where people are encouraged to feel their “truth”. Nina feels her truth onstage – but off it, she has her guard constantly up. She has to fend off the advances of male comics and, just men in general – she wants to be in control – which means a lot of anonymous one night stands. When she is approached by Rafe (Common) in a club, she doesn’t know what to do with him. He’s nice and kind, calm and confident. When she tells him she isn’t going to fuck him, it doesn’t faze him – he asks her out anyway. He just wants to take things one step at a time and see where things go.

 

The plot of All About Nina is, admittedly, riddled with clichés. In almost any movie about a stand-up comedian, you know you’re going to get to a scene where the main character flips out on stage – revealing the “truth” that they have hidden the whole movie to the audience that shocked and silent. That happens here – and the “truth” that Winstead reveals is fairly shocking (and, mostly, comes out of left field). As brilliant as Winstead is in this sequence – and it is her most show-offy moment, but still feels real, I almost wonder if it wasn’t needed at all. I’m not sure we really need to assign a reason to Nina’s anger the way the film seems to feel the need to.

 

I also think that Common is another reason why the film works. While Winstead’s Nina is all raw edges and emotions, Common is a calming force in the movie – and for Nina. He’s a good guy – not a perfect one as the film makes clear, but a guy who knows who he is, and is confident in that. It’s also refreshing to see Common take on a role that does burden him with being some moral, upstanding guy – like he seems to be most often. Here, he’s a nice guy.

 

The film was the debut for writer/director Eva Vives, and it’s a fine debut for her. Yes, it indulges in clichés, but she also gets such wonderful performances from her actors, and taps into a kind of deep, dark pit of anger that so many women feel right now. It’s not perfect – but it’s very good. And it should serve as a reminder of how great Winstead can be.