Night Nurse is a psychosexual neo-noir following a young, impressionable caregiver who gets drawn into a manipulative phone-scam ring run by a wily patient in a luxury retirement community.
Eleni takes a job as a night nurse at an Illinois retirement community overseen by Doctor Mann, she is assigned to care for Fouglad, an older resident supposedly suffering from Cognitive decline and early onset Alzheimer’s. During the day, Douglas appears completely confused and fails memory tests administered by the staff. However Eleni learns the ropes from Mona, a day nurse whose dangerously intimate beside manner already blurs professional boundaries.
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As the night falls, Douglas’s confusion vanishes, he reveals that his senility is a clever act to deceive the facility. Douglas operates an elaborate phone scam, tricking vulnerable, lonely senior citizens in and around the community into wiring bail money for a fake “granddaughter in trouble with the police”.
Mona and her roommate are already in on the operation, Eleni is quickly seduced by Douglas’s low-key charisma, the illicit thrill of the crime, and the intimate dynamic of the group.
The trio-Douglas,Mona and Eleni-spend their days and nights lounging in Douglas’s quarters, operating the scam and pocketing thousands of dollars from their neighbors. A strange, dark, romantic triangle forms around the manipulative patriarch. When Mona eventually leaves, Eleni expects to have Douglas entirely to herself, instead the increasingly demanding Douglas begins roping other nurses into the fraudulent scheme.
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Intoxicated by power, perversion and a warped sense of purpose, Eleni grows deeper into her obsession even as Douglas’s actual physical and mental state begins to genuinely deteriorate under the strain.
The film culminates in a fragile, dysfunctional routine that threatens to implode as medical oversight by Doctor Mann closes in on their twisted arrangement.
Directed by: Georgia Bernstein
Cast: Cemre Paksoy, Bruce McKenzie, Eleonore Hendricks, Colleen Rose,Mimi Rogers
Running time: 95 minutes
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