The fashion industry has a myriad of problems which no one seems to want to talk about. From fuelling eating disorders to a needlessly high impact on climate change, it’s a cutthroat business that tends to attract the most talented, chew them up and then spit them out. Young designers enter the industry and face a culture shock. It’s sink or swim in a dog-eat-dog world. One former high-flyer tries to get her career back on track in Nocebo.
A star of the fashion world (Eva Green) finds her life collapsing around her when she starts suffering from a crippling mysterious psychological illness. Her inability to function frustrates her marketing strategist husband (Mark Strong). Bobs (Billie Gadsdon) just wants her mother back. As she begins to take tentative steps back into work, Diana (Chai Fonacier), a Filipino nanny, arrives to help. Not that she can remember hiring her.
It’s difficult to talk about Nocebo without spoiling it. Director Lorcan Finnegan (Vivarium) tackles abuse and exploitation through a plot laden with smoke and mirrors. Not to mention, a few red herrings. Creating a film which rests somewhere between psychological thriller and folk horror. Mixing the tradition with the modern to create a story which is cuttingly on the nose. Nocebo is a fraught and acerbic slice of genre cinema.
Nocebo opens in the cinemas in the US on 4 November and then on demand/digital on 22 November.
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