Nina Forever

Nina Forever

Nina Forever is truly a haunted love story. When Nina dies in a car accident, she leaves behind her boyfriend Rob and he becomes a depressed mess. When he begins to see his co-worker Holly, the new relationship gets a little messy when the restless (and very dead) Nina comes back whenever the couple has sex.

When Holly and Rob first start to connect in Rob's home, the camera cuts to his bed and we see a small red circle begin to appear as the sheets begin to beat like a heart. As the two move to the bedroom and become intimate, the resurrection of Nina begins as she crawls out through the bed from below and the scene is as beautiful as it is disturbing. The scene is covered in a comforting, bluish glow from the night as the pale white and blood covered Nina rises from the sheets. And Fiona O'Shaughnessy as Nina is startlingly good here as her dead, limp body is accompanied by her expressionless face and soft, angelic voice. The whole scene demonstrates the disturbing beauty that fills Nina Forever from beginning to end. It asks the question do our former loves ever truly leave us? And the way it explores this is absolutely brilliant and it definitely brings new meaning to the phrase that when you sleep with someone, you sleep with everyone they've ever slept with.
It's a dark film, a somber film, slightly depressing and uplifting and funny. Yeah, it is all of those things. Nina Forever is love itself: every emotion and every reaction and every instinct all at the same time. It would have been easy for the sex scenes to come off as uncomfortable or distracting but the filmmakers maintain an essential and tasteful quality to the scenes that keep them necessary and integral to the story. I credit O'Shaughnessy for the premise and outcome of Nina Forever being so successful. She embodies death in a way I've never seen before, her expressionless, haunted face and big eyes and the crispness of every word she speaks is fascinating. Without her performance, I am not sure if the film would have worked as well. She's that good.
Abigail Hardingham is also superb in this. She plays the role of Holly in such an alluring and dark fashion that it's hard not to almost instantly be on her side. Her look is pouty and dark and she gives the impression with her eyes to be looking up even as she is looking straight ahead, giving her a curious and mischievous appearance and she is exactly what was needed to play opposite O'Shaughnessy to make this threesome believable. While Cian Barry as Rob has less to do than his female co-stars, he does a solid job as the guy caught in the middle, trying to move on and lost at the same time. He has many touching and painful scenes with Nina's grieving parents, a nice sub-plot that explores the difficulty of a fading relationship with a significant others parents once that significant other has died.
I honestly can't praise this film enough, it is one hell of story that demonstrates the power of creative and effective filmmaking at every level. It's deep, it's dark, it's funny and moving. If you're looking for one reason to celebrate Valentine's Day, Nina Forever is it.