Nocebo is an Irish-Filipino psychological thriller/horror film. It stars Eva Green, Chai Fonacier, Mark Strong, and child actress Billie Gadson. Fashion designer Christine (Green) is suffering from a mysterious illness. A woman from the Philippines, Diana (Fonacier), suddenly turns up at the front door. Diana tells Christine that she's there to be her new housekeeper — but Christine doesn't remember hiring one...
Christine's husband Felix (Strong) and her daughter Bobs (Gadson) don't trust Diana, especially when she introduces Christine to Visayan folk medicine. Christine grows increasingly desperate, however, and slowly believes Diana might have the cure.
Available for streaming on Netflix. The screenplay is by Garret Shanley, with Cebuano-language dialogue provided by Ara Chawdhury. Lorcan Finnegan (best known for Vivarium) directs.
Beware of spoilers.
Tropes
- Ambiguous Situation: Diana's husband Jomar is back home in Cebu, weeping, when Diana finally kills Christine. It is unknown whether he agreed with her revenge plan at all, though Diana's spectre briefly appears to tell him in Cebuano that "it is finally complete".
- Animal Motifs: Ticks appear throughout the film. Christine gets her illness from a tick and Diana uses a tick throughout the film. Diana later compares Christine to a tick due to the fact that the latter uses a sweatshop to get the clothes she needs.
- Asshole Victim: Christine hired a sweat shop to manufacture her clothes. She specifically ordered them to lock the doors to prevent theft. This meant that the workers and their loved ones could not escape when a fire later happened. Right before the latter's death, Diana curses Christine to experience what it's like to be forced to work during a fire.
- Bilingual Bonus:
- Diana, her family (in flashbacks), and Christine, during a ritual speak Cebuano, a language native to the Philippines, at various points.
- Nocebo.note is the opposite of the placebo effect. In Latin, however, it specifically means to harm.
- Bittersweet Ending: Diana finally gets her revenge on Christine and passes her witchcraft to Bobs, who happily accepts this exchange. However, Felix lost his wife (without really knowing the crimes she committed), Diana is dead (as she killed herself to pass her knowledge to Bobs) and Diana's husband Jomar has to live with fact that he lost both his daughter and wife.
- Driven to Suicide: A happy one. After successfully torturing Christine for months and making her experience an excruciating death, Diana jumps to her death with a triumphant grin on her face. This also passes her witchcraft on to Bobs.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
- Well, evil isn't quite the word for it. But even when Diana has been consumed so badly by her need for revenge that she's been torturing one woman for months, destroyed her family, murdered her, and is planning to pass on her witchcraft to that woman's innocent kid, she sincerely thanks her husband for the happiness he brought to her life before she offs herself.
- Christine is callous and exploitative to the point of causing many deaths. But she genuinely loves her husband and daughter.
- Karmic Death: Christine uses a poorly-runed sweatshop to manufacture her clothes, with the poor maintenance eventually causing a fire that killed Diana's daughter. Diana later subjects Christine to the same fate by forcing to her overwork and eventually gets burned to a crisp.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Felix is casually racist to Diana, but he's very much right about Diana having malicious intentions towards Christine. Except Diana isn't just an opportunist taking advantage of Christine or whatnot — she's here for revenge.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Diana promises to heal Christine with Visayan magic. Felix believes it's nonsense and that Diana is just taking advantage of Christine. The witchcraft turns out to be real, but it wasn't meant to heal Christine at all.
- Reality Has No Subtitles: Felix is dumbstruck when he asks Diana where in the Philippines she's from and she simply tells him "Sa kilumkilom."note
- Replacement Goldfish: Although Bobs doesn't trust Diana at first, the two of them eventually form a bond. It is implied that Bobs is something of this to Diana, whose daughter died. Diana later kills herself so she can pass her witchcraft to Bobs.
- Villain Protagonist: Christine seems like a kindhearted, sympathetic woman. But she turns out to be callous and exploitative enough to use a sweat shop. The working conditions there were so horrible that many of the workers and their loved ones died in a fire. Diana was one of the workers, and her daughter died in the fire... and Christine doesn't even remember Diana despite meeting her at the sweat shop.