The opening film at this year’s Tubi Frightfest London, Nervous is an ambitious psychological thriller set in the South Korean countryside. Irish actress Sarah Bolger reunites with director Abner Pastoll after the success of 2019’s A Good Woman is Hard to Find, which closed the same festival that year, to spin the unnerving tale of a woman who accompanies her Korean husband back to his homeland, in a desperate effort to save their failing marriage, only to lose the ability to hear men.
Moving into an empty and isolated house in the countryside, far from the urban sprawl of Seoul, Sarah (Bolger) and Sungsoo (Sungsoo Yune, Smugglers) experience a series of strange and unsettling events. First their furniture has not been delivered, then they discover an injured and dishevelled woman on their balcony who appears to have been squatting there. Things only get worse when Sungsoo unearths an old-timey hand-cranked record player in the attic. The accompanying vinyl at first appears to play only silence, but soon after listening to it, Sarah loses the ability to hear her husband’s voice. “A dream come true,” quips one character upon hearing about Sarah’s condition, but for Pastoll, it is a stylistic hook upon which to hang a rather unique exploration of unbalanced gender roles.
As Sarah’s condition worsens, the muffled male voices begin to take a physical and psychological toll on her. Sungsoo struggles to take his wife seriously, growing increasingly dismissive and resentful of what he interprets as performative - or at worst, stress-related antics. In desperate need of a sympathetic ear, Sarah finds solace in the company of Eunbyeol (Ko Asung, The Host), their beautiful and alluring neighbour, and as Sungsoo grows ever more distant, Sarah and Eunbyeol are drawn closer together.
A UK-Korean co-production, Nervous was filmed entirely on location in Korea, but thankfully the script never leans too hard on cultural disorientation as the root of Sarah’s problems. So many productions of this type, often featuring a western director and/or lead performer, flock to the Far East where they can’t wait to fetishise Asia in all its neon-lit, sweat-drenched lawless exoticism in such a way that almost never rings true. To his credit, Pastoll keeps Nervous grounded in a recognisable reality, even when introducing the film’s shamelessly J-horror-influenced macguffin, or teasing at the unfolding series of grisly murders in the region that have left five men dead and as many women missing.
Rather than riffing on overplayed Asian horror tropes, Nervous is more interested in exploring the country’s gender-based hierarchy - not something unique to Korea, of course, but certainly somewhere where it remains prominent in everyday life. The script deftly illustrates how Sungsoo’s behaviour gradually escalates from being chivalrous to controlling - presenting her with a new home, after promising they would house hunt together, and later speaking for his wife to friends or even doctors, despite Sarah being present.
The gaslighting husband is a classic horror staple, refusing to take his wife’s concerns seriously as she spirals into an increasingly isolating state of delirium. Gradually we piece together the problems with their relationship, as well as Sarah’s own history of erratic, obsessive behaviour. Simultaneously, Eunbyeol’s presence serves as a seductive distraction, one initially presented as a further disruption, only later to offer a possible salvation.
Largely devoid of jump scares or other gimmicks, Pastoll steadily creates a sense of encroaching exclusion and helplessness largely through Bolger’s impressive central performance. She is initially comfortable and confident in her new surroundings, but as the chasm of communication widens between her and her husband, she soon feels untethered. Mysterious figures appear in the middle of the night, strange voices emerge from the ominous silent recordings, but most impactful of all, Sarah’s eardrums appear to gush torrents of blood without any visible injury. An intrusive self-examination late on proves to be the film’s most memorable - and overtly horrific - sequence.
As Sungsoo, Yune is stiff, cold and unsympathetic in a role that demands him to be precisely that, while Ko Asung is always an intriguing screen presence. The actress has dabbled in multi-lingual international projects since as far back as Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer, with 2023’s Because I Hate Korea another notable example. In Nervous, her character could easily have devolved into a one-dimensional dragon lady or china doll cliche, but while Eunbyeol is enigmatic and mysterious, she retains an agency, growing increasingly pivotal throughout the escalating drama.
The film includes perhaps too many montage sequences set to jaunty pop tunes that feel detached from the rest of the whole, and doesn’t quite align all its disparate thematic ducks in time for the admittedly rather predictable denouement. Nevertheless, for much of its runtime, Nervous navigates the treacherous waters of the “white protagonist in Asia” narrative with a sure and steady hand, and most importantly, seems to genuinely understand and respect the culture it is attempting to dissect.