Reviews: MOANA (2026) & NIGHT NURSE

 by Rob DiCristino

You’re getting two because I refuse to devote a whole column to live-action Moana.

Moana (Dir. Thomas Kail)

You know what I love about animation? I mean really good, textured, vibrant animation? I love the creativity of it all. I love the way talented artists imagine a world — or worlds, sometimes — beyond our own. They’re wondrous and strange worlds that are also uncannily familiar. The characters that populate those worlds are familiar, too. They’re comforting! Hell, for many of us, animated characters helped us navigate our earliest emotions. They were our introductions to literary archetypes. They were our first friends and teachers. Think about Woody and Buzz or Sully and Mike. Think about Snow White. Or Totoro! The Iron Giant! Jack Skellington! Each has the requisite humanity for us to see ourselves reflected in them, but then they also have that extra bit of, well, animation that lets us imagine ourselves as so much more. I don’t know how to create anything that special. I’m no artist. I’m no designer. But I love seeing what these geniuses are capable of — and what they can teach me about myself — when they’re given the room to dream.

Meanwhile, do you know what the people at the Walt Disney Corporation love? Money! Right? That’s the only feasible explanation for Moana (2026), the next in an endless parade of live-action remakes that have started to feel like an elaborate test of our collective intelligence (or lack thereof): Are global cinema audiences stupid enough to pay for the same product twice? They are? Excellent! What if it was half as good as the first product? What if it was half as textured and vibrant? What if it was flat and dull, lifeless and uninspired? Would anyone be able to tell, and — perhaps more insidiously — would anyone actually care? That’s it, isn’t it? Judging by the billions and billions and billions of dollars these remakes have generated since they began in earnest roughly a decade ago, I think we have our answer: No one gives a shit. We are dumb enough to pay not just for the same thing twice — Disney has always re-released their classic titles, and there’s at least an understandable nostalgia factor there — but something tangibly, objectively worse.

That revelation — that Disney, like Netflix, Amazon, and the United States of America, is both more expensive and less valuable than it used to be — is far more powerful than any insight I could share about Moana (2026). If you insist on an actual review, here it is: It’s Moana but worse. It’s Moana but shot against a shitty green screen. It’s Moana without the color, texture, or depth. It’s Moana without the clever direction or comic timing. It’s Moana with songs half-heartedly performed by less talented singers. It’s Moana starring a Dwayne Johnson who — fresh off the first of what will likely be many bungled Oscar campaigns — looks openly exhausted and disengaged. It’s a Moana that can’t even muster the condescending smirk of Aladdin (2024) or the catastrophic self-importance of The Lion King (2019). It’s a Moana made by people who think they don’t actually have to earn your money anymore. It’s a Moana that believes you’re a fucking idiot. But I’m here to tell you something: You’re not a fucking idiot. I don’t care what Disney believes. I believe in you.

Moana hits U.S. theaters on Friday, July 10th. You work too hard to waste your time on it.

Night Nurse (Dir. Georgia Bernstein)

Look, I’m not here to kink shame anyone (at least not until I get paid for it). I think the world is a rainbow and we’re all god’s children and hey, whatever goes down between consenting adults is none of my business (at least not until I get paid for it). But even I have to admit feeling a little bit of trepidation during the opening of Night Nurse: The camera traces the length of a telephone cord wrapped around the body of a young woman as she role plays a granddaughter under duress. “Help me, Grandpa,” she says — no, moans — as an approving male voice eggs her on. “I don’t have much time to talk. I’m in a lot of trouble. I hurt people. They say I’m going to jail, and I need a lot of money.” Someone’s getting scammed, here — and at least two people are getting off — but it’s unclear exactly who, where, and, frankly, why. Now again, that’s none of my business (at least not until I get paid for it), but it did catch my attention long enough to keep watching Night Nurse, a steamy black comedy from longtime indie producer Georgia Bernstein, making her feature debut.

As it turns out, the voice on the phone is Eleni (Cemre Paksoy), an unassuming young woman who’s just taken a nursing position at a retirement community. It’s a swanky one with personalized care, and Eleni’s been assigned to Douglas (Bruce McKenzie), a dementia patient with a history of sexual misadventure. If you’re wondering why Dr. Mann (Mimi Rodgers) would willingly put young women like Eleni and day nurse Mona (Elenore Hendricks) in a sex pervert’s orbit, well, that might just all be part of the plan. Douglas is a con artist, you see, and his Svengali bit is apparently so intoxicating that women young and old are lining up to subjugate themselves to his whims. It’s not long before Eleni and Mona are cruising the community in Douglas’ convertible, hunting for the target of their next call. But what happens when Douglas starts to tire of Eleni’s devotion? What happens when his eye starts to wander? To what lengths will Eleni go to demonstrate her undying enthusiasm — an enthusiasm that feels like it’s starting to border on obsession — for Douglas’ care?

Night Nurse isn’t funny enough to be an out-and-out comedy, nor is it thorny or complex enough to really qualify as a thriller. It rides a lane somewhere in a campier middle, with an offbeat, enigmatic tone that mixes Secretary and Fatal Attraction with a dash of The Piano Teacher and Crash. It might never approach the perverse elegance or uncompromising bravery of The Handmaiden, Titane, or Blue Velvet — you know, the boss-level sicko shit — but Bernstein nevertheless demonstrates a strong eye for composition and an essential trust in her audience’s intelligence. Debuts tend to be overconfident, “kitchen sink” affairs in which first-timers trip over their own feet in a rush to prove themselves as budding masters or idiosyncratic revolutionaries, but Night Nurse is an excellent case of addition by subtraction. Bernstein’s refusal to illuminate each of the story’s nooks and crannies is a feature, not a bug, and while it might keep the film firmly in the genre’s B-tier, that restraint will actually earn the writer/director a bit more trust from us on her next feature effort.

Night Nurse is in limited theatrical release on Friday, July 10th.