Nancy, Please
Andrew Semans, 2013
Catalog No.: FTF-042
Length: 83 minutes
Nancy, Please tells the story of Paul, a young, gifted, and aimless Yale University student who has just moved in with his girlfriend and is struggling to complete his dissertation before embarking on a career in academia. There’s just one snag: as Paul is unpacking his belongings, he discovers that he has left something behind, and only his obstinate and casually sinister former roommate, Nancy, can give it back to him. Paul contacts Nancy, but she will not cooperate and proceeds to thwart Paul’s clumsy and increasingly frantic efforts to retrieve his property. What should be the simplest of errands becomes intolerably difficult. His annoyance turns to rage and then to obsession. As Paul becomes increasingly consumed with Nancy, he begins to unravel, and his life becomes much, much worse before it gets better.
Featuring: Will Rogers, Eleondre Hendricks, Rebecca Lawrence and Santino Fontana
Directed by Andrew Semans
Written by Will Heinrich and Andrew Semans
Produced by Dave Saltzman and Vinay Singh
Cinematography by Eric Lin
Edited by Ron Dulin
Festivals: Tribeca Film Festival, Sidewalk Film Festival, Florida Film Festival, Woods Hole Film Festival
WATCH THE FILM
PRESS
"You can't avert your eyes."
-Stephen Holden, The New York Times
"A twisted, mordent comedy."
-Amy Taubin, Film Comment
"Arresting. Engrossing."
-Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter
"Engrossing... Nancy, Please holds up a grotesque and distorted fun house mirror to procrastinators, who refuse to buckle down and take responsibility."
-PopMatters
"A fascinating character study... Semans’ well-done debut heads into unforeseen directions in its final act, and that’s when Nancy, Please really earns its kudos."
-Complex
"Engrossing, alternately funny and horrifying."
-CBS Minnesota
"Pitiless... black humor abounds... offers a welcome variation on the conquering frat boy or Ferris Bueller-type adolescent."
-Variety
"A slyly disturbing tragicomedy."
-The Huffington Post
"One of the most effective contemporary onscreen portrayals of male impotency."
-Film-Forward
"Impressively ambiguous. Unsettling.”
-Sundance Channel SUNfiltered
"Something special... Eléonore Hendricks makes an everlasting impression."
-Smells Like Screen Spirit
"Nancy, Please veers from a yuppie nesting comedy into a nifty psychological thriller—as well as a dead-on depiction of doctoral-student psychosis."
-The Village Voice
"A potent psychodrama. Darkly comic."
-Sound on Sight